The last three hours had been a blur, a kaleidoscope of one horror after another. Unlike most of his peers, Terrance had never killed before that night. He now had one notch on his belt from when Tau and Phi raided San Solano, and it had barely even hit his conscience before the monster calling itself Kaj murdered two men in cold blood. And now, what the hell was this? He’d been in the tunnels spanning the NIDUS stronghold countless times before, but this was the first time he’d seen the ageless caverns that ate their way through the earth. Had NIDUS built these?
Another coated man on the opposite side of the ledge flashed his light along the concave wall behind them. The beam revealed two rusted pins from which lines of braided rope ran, crawling along the wall and down into the dark. “This is the way down,” the man said, voice wavering as he spoke.
Terrance scoffed. “You want us to rappel down there? On that?” He shut his mouth like the others when that same growling sound came from behind them. He didn’t think Nal would hesitate to hurl him off the ledge to his death as an example. Swallowing a mouthful of nervous saliva, he shuffled toward one of the ropes, his instinct of self-preservation committing suicide.
Against all sound reason, the men descended side by side down the abyssal wall. They made their descent in absolute darkness and near silence, ever aware of the beast in the cloak that seemed to slink down the rock face like running blood. Terrance felt like he was descending into his own grave, and he could smell the dread rolling off the other men.
After an eternal climb, the sound of pebbles crunching came from below as the first Marauder’s boots touched the ground. At once a flashlight flared, revealing their surroundings. The light almost blinded Terrance, but that pain was worth it; the ground wasn’t far below. As soon as he felt earth under his feet, he drew his own flashlight from his pocket and ignited it in a panic. Shaking a little, he painted the stone walls of the chamber with light, searching for the way forward. The pit had narrowed significantly during the climb, and his natural claustrophobia was tightening his lungs.
“Breathe, kid,” one of the elder coats said in a low tone. But he couldn’t.
The slinking yellow robe melted to the ground like a peeled scab and gestured to the dark recess in the wall to their right, beckoning them onward. And so they marched forward into the narrow passageway, Terrance in the rear just ahead of the inhuman thing known as Nal. When the rocky ground became more uneven and he stumbled over a particularly round stone, he had to fight back the urge to shine his light over its surface. It was only a misplaced sense of urgency that left that object shrouded in blackness; had he seen what it was he was stumbling over, there’s nothing in the world that could have forced him on through that tunnel.
The tight, sloping passageway through the cavern opened up after aeons of advancing through the ancient rift, and the first sign of their destination appeared not long thereafter. Beyond the bend of the passage, a warm glow flickered. “What is that?” Terrance asked in a terrified whisper that the rest of the coated men ignored. Several minutes later, the glow became brighter. Ahead yawned a huge, lit chamber. Shivering, footsteps leaden with a fresh apprehension, he filed forward with the other Marauders into the waiting hollow, leaving the passage of uneven rocks behind. The cavern was expansive, perhaps two hundred feet from wall to wall, though he could not easily estimate through the pressure of the hot light on his eyes. The ceiling may have been fifty or sixty feet above, and from that impressive height a forest of stalactites dripped down at them.
Near the center of the grotto there stood a line of braziers; the colors of their flames were somehow off, and the scent of the smoke invoked nightmarish images of rotting things crawling along the walls out of Terrance’s peripheral vision. The tongues of light licking across the high walls revealed even more tunnels leading to darker recesses of unthinkable depths. Crude pictographs flowed along the contours of the chamber, the meaning of which he could not decipher. Pressed up against the far edges of the cavern were clusters of primitive tipi-like tents, some of which seemed to be built into the upper walls with no visible supports.
The men ahead of him spread out, approaching but not crossing the line demarcated by the metal braziers. They held their assault rifles at the ready as though they had done this a thousand times. Apprehensively, Terrance followed their lead. He dared not voice his confusion for fear of the robed thing. Nal, with a low growl that echoed back in a sonorous warble, strode past their loose perimeter and did not stop until he’d reached the very center of the braziers.
For a long moment, there was only stillness in the cavern. Terrance’s heart skipped a beat when he heard a murmuring sound slinking out from one of the walls. His reflexes threw the beam of his flashlight toward one of the black tunnels. He gasped when he saw the illuminated eyes of a small group of sick-looking creatures. They were humanoid, but horrific in their inhumanity. Their skin was pale, their bodies lank and spindly. One of them raised a hand to block the scouring light from its eyes, and Terrance saw that its fingernails were long and discolored, filed to narrow points. He began to shake, recalling the descriptions of the Morlocks from H.G. Wells’s Time Machine.
“Keep calm,” the man next to him whispered. “Just keep your eyes open.”
“What are they?”
“Hell if I know.”
Terrance took a deep, musty breath to calm his nerves. “You’ve all been down here before?”
The man shook his head. “Not this far down. But Phi’s been shafted with guard duty through the keyholes half a dozen times. Sometimes you hear shuffling, scratching. Turn your head at the wrong time and you might catch sight of one of those watching you. Just watching. Whispering.” Despite his calm tone, his lips trembled. “This is the first time I’ve seen one so fucking close.”
A short while later, another creature emerged from one of the bizarre tipis on the other end of the cave. Like the others, his skin was pale and stretched tightly over his bones. As he drew nearer, Terrance saw that he was ancient, time-beaten. A long, filthy beard flowed from his face and wrapped around his waist, interweaving with a makeshift belt. The belt was uneven, pulled too low by a heavy-looking bag on his left. The only other garment Terrance could see was a hide loincloth covered in red markings. The man approached Nal, and when he reached the line of braziers he knelt down in genuflection and dipped his head. “A-hai the’rax-ma, False One,” the old man said in a croaky rasp, an odd melody running through each word.
Nal remained silent, not returning the greeting.
“It’s been a long while since we’ve been called upon,” the old man said. “Quite a while indeed. How many moons has it been since last you deigned to look upon our ilk?” He began to trace something in the dust with a long, bony finger. “You have come for another Hive, no?”
Nal took in a deep breath. “No.” The word echoed in the hollows of his mouth. He reached into his robe, groped about, and withdrew a sheet of paper. He made a growling noise and dropped it to the ground.
The old man snatched the sheet from the floor and held it close to his eyes, squinting. For a few moments, the only sound was the crackling of the fires. When he finished reading, an insidious cackle burst from between his thin, emaciated lips. “Now these old eyes have seen everything. Begone from here, demon. We will not be insulted by these demands.” Nal growled again as the elder lifted himself on his creaky knees. “You believe we will see this as redemption?” He narrowed his discolored eyes as he crumpled the paper in his fist. “Redemption for your creator’s artificial blasphemy? Don’t make me laugh.”
Nal’s snarl grew more savage, but the elder looked up at him without fear.
“Redemption. What value is that to us? After all we have given you, you would insult us with such an offer? In whose eyes are we to be redeemed? Were we not the ones that produced your so-called Conduit in the first place? Were it not for us, you would not even exist, demon.”
There came a cracking and tearing sound, and Nal’s gr
owls bloomed into hideous, dripping words. “This is not about you and us. This is about the Overspider’s will.” Blood ran from his mouth, splattering against the stone floor.
The old man eyed the drops, and another dry laugh scratched at the walls. “You think you speak for Raxxinoth? You, the babes of the order? Though you have holy blood, that does not make you enlightened. Nor does it make you our superiors, you beast.”
Nal’s arm flew out and seized the old man by the throat. He lifted his frail body up from the ground with no hint of effort. “If you will not serve Raxxinoth,” Nal seethed, “then we have no further use for you.”
“If you kill me,” the man choked out, “then you will need to kill all of the Websworn.”
“The others will serve. I will break them.”
The old man’s face turned red, and after a moment he made a panicked rasping sound in his chest. “Release me.”
Nal hesitated, and then dropped him back to his feet. The old man’s legs shook as he hit the ground, as though his bones were about to splinter. He grasped his throat, sucking deep breaths down.
“If you will not grant what we seek,” Nal said, the blood flowing thicker from his ruined mouth, “then I will ask the rest of the Websworn. They will be more responsive.”
The old man rubbed his throat and glared up at the robed figure. He dropped to his haunches and began to trace in the dust once more. He muttered to himself under his breath, coughing every now and then. His lower jaw drifted open, giving Terrance a good look at his teeth, which—like his fingernails—were filed to sharp points. Then, he opened his eyes and stood up. “If we give you what you seek,” he said, “then you will pay us double for it.”
Nal growled. “You push your luck, shaman.”
“We care for our people. To part with even one, the others must be made whole.” A rotten smile came to his lips. “Double. Then you will have my grandson.”
Another vicious growl, but the shaman did not flinch. Finally, the Vant’therax shook his head. “Done.”
“Very well.” The old man turned from Nal and began to walk. After a few moments, he disappeared into one of the tunnels that branched off of the chamber, leaving the Vant’therax and the guards in silence.
“What’s going on?” Terrance asked the man next to him, keeping his voice low enough that Nal would not hear him. No answer came.
A short while later, the old man emerged again from the tunnel. Behind him walked what was, or had once been, a young man. By his facial structure, he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He was shorter than the shaman by half a head, and his skin was far paler. His eyes—strikingly green, bright as emeralds—were large and bulbous. A thick tangle of greasy black hair sat atop his head. His skin seemed to glow with a light, scaly sheen. The two stopped before Nal, and the old man looked over the boy.
“This is he. Son of our firstborn’s womb, first of the third generation. The first twice over, he is removed from your master’s sins by two full generations. I wonder,” he said, with a veiled sarcasm, “do you think that will make him more compliant?”
Nal growled. “Redemption,” was all he said. He sounded as though his mouth was full.
The elder’s eyes narrowed as he considered the Vant’therax. “Your empty words mean nothing to us, devil. We were loyal to Raxxinoth long before your heretical births.” He turned to the young man, who was staring at the thing in the yellow robe. “Any regrets?”
The pale boy shook his head, eyes unblinking. He grunted.
“He doesn’t speak,” the elder said. “Never picked it up.”
“Fine.” A trickle of dripped from the corner of Nal’s mouth. “Finish.”
The old man cackled. It sounded like crisp autumn leaves being crushed. “Very well.” He reached for the hide bag that hung from his waist and extracted a small pouch. He opened it and began to mutter a chant to himself as he dumped a handful of gray powder into his palm. Nervous, the young man reached out and accepted the ash-like powder from the shaman. Trembling, but careful not to spill any, the boy began to walk toward one of the blazing braziers.
The boy pinched a small portion of the powder from his palm and cast it into the flames. The fire flashed a brilliant blue color for a moment, and then it was gone. He proceeded to the second torch and repeated the action. Terrance watched in grim fascination as the pale mute visited each of the flames. When the last torch had been touched by the blue spark, the boy returned to the old man. The shaman’s esoteric chant continued as he withdrew a knife from his pouch. Eyes glinting with obvious fear, the young man turned his back to his grandfather.
With a surgical precision, the old man drew a shallow laceration diagonally from the young man’s left shoulder blade. The shaman drew a second cut from the right side, creating a red V. The young man’s back tensed hard. Next came an oval-shaped cut within that V, with eight rays that sliced through the angular frame. An upside-down crescent moon shape—resembling demonic horns—and then an inverted T completed the occult symbol.
“Know His name,” the old man said as he finished the carving, “and be chosen by the Overspider and the King. As you pass the barrier and return to your ancestral home, know His will. Go forth, and weave the helices of man and spider.” From all about the chamber, whispers and echoes of that mantra began to ring, whispered and called by the once-human things that lurked within the tunnels unseen. With each cycle of those words, the chorus grew louder and louder until it was a deafening sea of noise. Just when Terrance thought his head would split from the layered echoes of that baleful chant, their voices ceased at once. The last echo rang as it receded, somehow louder for the silence.
The old man turned to Nal and beckoned the boy onward. “He is yours,” he said. “His name is Talm, as our traditions—”
“No,” Nal barked. “No name.”
With a clear reluctance, Talm crossed over to Nal and looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Nal nodded and then turned back toward the tunnel. Terrance and the others stood their ground vigilantly as Nal and Talm made their way to the entrance. And as they reached the tunnel leading back to the labyrinthine cave system, the old man called out to them. “We were promised double the rations,” he said, looking over the formation of Marauders who still stood in the midst of the braziers. “But two and two rarely make six. What of the last two?”
Slowly, Nal turned back to him, contempt written upon his butchered features. He waved his arm in dismissal. “Meat.”
There was a moment of hollow silence as the meaning of that word fermented in Terrance’s mind. The old man’s wet cackle came again, accompanied by a glimmer of hunger in his stained irises. When he heard the hordes of pale-skinned lurkers slinking out from their tunnels, panic set in. The other men, too, must have realized the fact too late. Some of them began to shout and fire wild shots at the mobs that fell upon them from all angles. But it was futile to fire upon them; their flowing numbers were too great for a few bullets to save anyone. A sea of lank and savage white things, running together as one.
Terrance ran, back the way they’d come, the old man’s cackling ringing in his ears. Behind, another cry. A wall of sick white skin ripped apart another unlucky soul. He heard the gnashing of bone and teeth pouring out from that screen of laughter. Something sharp and spindly seized him by the shoulder, but he screamed and thrashed out of its grip, rushing toward the tunnel. A shrill grating sound, nails scraping sandstone in pursuit. The echoes of shrieks and gunfire rang all around him and drowned out all perception of time. All he was aware of was his feet moving, and the hungry snapping of dagger-filled jaws behind him.
Terrance called out to the yellow-robed monster in the tunnel, but Nal and the young man had vanished deeper into the dark. He sprinted into the passage, the scraping and chattering behind him growing ever hungrier. He reached for his gun only to realize that he had already lost it somewhere back in the cave. The musty smell putrefied in his nostrils. He fled from the crawling unmen as fast as
he could, stumbling and tripping over the smooth round stones that paved the entrance tunnel until one caught his ankle and sent him crashing to the ground. Were it not for the texture of the rock his hand fell upon when he tried to push himself up, he would likely have forgotten the foreboding dread from when he’d first tripped after descending the great cliff.
Hands trembling, he dared to cast his gaze at the object. His heart pounded a noxious rhythm, and the vague scent of rot that permeated the underworld grew clearer with each breath. The light from the funeral chamber behind fell across the object’s contours; two vacant eye sockets gazed back at him from the ivory surface of the stone.
The last thoughts he had before the pursuing creatures fell upon him were erased by the sound of his own scream. That sound was identical to the hungry cackle of the evil old man.
Chapter 8
Nemo
Talm sat, shivering, in the crude dormitory the yellow-robed False Ones had set up for his benefit. The sleeping surface, a four-legged thing covered in some manner of slick green hide, was unlike any he had ever seen. He recognized that the legs were made out of the element called metal, but that was all he could ascertain. The floor, the walls, the ceiling—they were all made out of some other kind of stone he had never seen before. It was smooth and glossy, cut into squares of alternating colors.
He’d spent most of his waking time marveling at the strange environment. He knew he was still underground because he had yet to see the strange creature the elders of the Websworn called Sun. It was apparently a very large beast that patrolled around the world on some long-forgotten mission. He had seen engravings in the old kingdom that depicted it, but he had not yet seen anything quite matching its description among the wonders that existed in this fortress.
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