He cursed. “I knew it was only a matter of time before they locked us up. Or worse.”
“How are we going to get out?”
Kull shook his head. “I don’t know, but we need to find that sword and leave this place as soon as possible.”
“I’ve already found it,” I said.
“You have?”
“Yes, I convinced Jeven to show it to me. The sword is in a room beneath the tower.”
“Beneath the tower?”
I nodded. Kull flexed his jaw, seeming lost in thought. “They must be keeping the sword close to the tombs I discovered. If we’re able to escape, we may be able to get to the sword through the tombs and avoid detection. And…” His eyes turned dark. “I must show you what I’ve found. It’s troubling, Olive. This place is not as it seems.”
“What do you mean? You found something in the tombs?”
He nodded. “I’ll show you, assuming we can escape this room.”
“But how do we manage that?”
He shook his head. “Perhaps we could break down the door?”
“No, there’s black magic in it. Trying to break through isn’t an option.”
“Another way, then. The window,” he said, turning around. We stepped toward it. Kull parted the curtains, and we glanced outside. Beneath us, a ledge jutted out, although it was almost eight feet down. Kull placed his hands on the glass and stared at the drop.
“We’ll go through here,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I don’t know of another way, and we don’t have time to find anything better.” He scanned the window and found a latch. After unhinging the mechanism, he swung the window outward.
Air thick with the scent of smoke entered the room. We leaned over the windowsill and focused on the ledge beneath us. Beyond the ledge, the city of Slavom sprawled. Chimneys rose over the buildings, pumping plumes of smoke that hid the nighttime sky. Millions of torches flickered, tinting the billowing clouds a muted shade of orange. Somewhere out there, Heidel and Maveryck were hopefully well on their way to disabling the unicorn’s stone.
“Let’s go,” Kull said, climbing over the windowsill. I followed. Together, we traversed the narrow ledge. For a moment, we hung suspended. A stiff wind blustered past as we let go of the ledge and dropped to the balcony below. I made sure to keep my knees bent as I landed to soften the impact, but as I dropped, the hard landing reverberated through my body.
Kull landed lithely beside me, which was impressive for a man of his size. Slowly, we traversed the balcony until we rounded the building and spotted a narrow staircase leading downward. Guards patrolled beneath us. We waited until they were out of sight, and then tiptoed down the stairs.
We located a small door leading inside, but when I attempted to turn the knob, I couldn’t make it budge.
“Locked,” I said.
“Keep going,” Kull whispered.
Together, we continued down the stairs until we reached the ground. The guards we’d seen from above paced away from us, and we used the opportunity to sneak behind the building. We entered a narrow alley between the sprawling buildings. Sounds of clanking machinery echoed from where we stood.
“Where do we go from here?” I whispered.
Kull scanned the alley. “There,” he said, pointing to a round grate in the ground.
“The sewer?”
“Yes, we should be able to access the tombs through there.”
We crossed to the metal grate. Kull knelt beside it and maneuvered the covering off the hole. The grate scraped the pavement and I cringed, hoping he hadn’t alerted the guards. Kull grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the opening.
I climbed down first, and Kull followed. Sounds of scraping metal reverberated as Kull replaced the grate overhead. I prayed the sound hadn’t alerted anyone as I continued to climb down. Iciness radiated from the metal rungs, chilling my fingers. I felt as if I couldn’t climb fast enough, and the ladder seemed to stretch forever without an end.
The light overhead dimmed when I finally stepped to the ground, my boots splashing the shallow water covering the sewer floor. Kull stepped off behind me. He took my hand as we dashed through the sewer. Only a little light came from grates spaced infrequently overhead. The sound of splashing water echoed as we jogged through the narrow tunnels. We passed several doors, but Kull bypassed them all, mumbling something about not being close enough.
Ahead, at the end of a cramped tunnel, stood a small metal door.
“There,” he whispered, his voice reverberating. “The tombs must be through there.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes, the entrance was beneath the main building leading into the tower. Look there.” He pointed up. I peered through the sewer grate. Jeven’s tower loomed overhead.
Kull stepped to the door and attempted to open it, but the latch was bolted shut with a lock. He removed his sword.
“We’ll see what Gnat Biter is capable of,” he said quietly, then raised both arms over his head and brought them down in a swift motion. The lock severed in two and fell off the door, splashing as it landed.
He sheathed his sword and gave me a slight smile.
“I guess Gnat Biter’s not so bad after all,” I said.
“I wouldn’t go that far, but yes, the sword has its uses.”
Kull grasped the door handle. Metal hinges squealed as he pulled it open and then led me inside. We entered a dimly lit stairwell. Without speaking, Kull lead me down the stairs. I followed, walking quietly. Although I knew we’d left the guards behind, I still felt uneasy, as if making any sound would alert Jeven’s people to our presence.
When we reached the bottom floor, Kull led me through a maze of hallways until we stopped at a door set under a deep alcove.
As I faced the door, I felt a spell in the rusted metal panels, but it didn’t feel like an ordinary ward meant to keep us out. Still, the magic felt powerful as it pushed against my own powers.
“The entrance to the tombs is through here,” he said. “Do you sense any magic?”
“Yes, but I don’t think it’s meant to keep us out. We should be safe to enter.”
He nodded, then carefully opened the door and led me into a cavern with rough stone floors and a domed ceiling made of the same stone. Natural pillars resembling stalagmites grew from the floors and connected with the ceiling in some places.
An eerie purple glow came from the room. Oval-shaped, bauble-like pods, as tall as a person, protruded from the walls, casting the purplish glow. We circled the enormous space until we reached one of the pods.
Gasping, I drew back at what I saw encased in the stone.
The tall glass bubble was filled with gray fluid. Inside the liquid, I spotted a humanoid figure that was little more than a skeleton. Bits of skin and muscle still clung to the bones in places. Its skull had one eye, though it was covered in film, and only a faint gleam of red shone through the milky surface. The lips were peeled back completely, revealing a set of carnivorous teeth.
Chills bristled my skin as I studied the figure. This felt wrong. I couldn’t understand why that person was trapped in there—or even if this was a person—but I knew this was wholly unnatural.
I took a step closer and the figure looked up, focusing its eye on me. Fear made my heart race, but I couldn’t look away.
“Is it… alive?” I asked.
The form moved closer and placed a hand on the bubble’s inner shell. I drew in a sharp breath, and I couldn’t seem to move from where I stood.
With its hand pressed to the glass, I noticed that the person still had a fingertip attached to its index finger. The skin was white and bloated, barely clinging to the bone, like one last remaining shred of humanity.
“Yes, they’re alive,” Kull said behind me.
I turned around. “They?”
He nodded. “Look over here.” He led me away from the pod. We rounded a corner and saw a depression in the floor that
led to a gaping hole. As we stood on the edge, we saw the bubble shapes glowing dimly beneath us, encased in the stone, just like the one behind us, stretching for miles beneath us.
Humanoid forms floated in their prisons, some peering up at us through glassy eyes. A few forms were still shockingly human-looking with skin and hair, and some with clothing.
“Kull,” I said, my heart racing. “What’s going on here?”
“My best guess is that they’re trying to preserve their population. They said millions died after Theht left. They’re desperate to survive. They must’ve found a way to preserve life in some form.”
“But are they actually alive?”
“I can’t say for sure. It seems they’re somewhat cognizant, but do they retain their memories from their lives before this happened? I don’t know.”
I stared below at the ghost-like shapes floating in the liquid. “It’s sickening.”
“I agree, but there’s more. Follow me.” He led me away from the hole and into another area of the cave. Rows of flat, rectangular tables were arranged throughout the space. Buckets, knives, chisels, and small hammers rested on the floors or hung on the walls.
The pervading scent of death lingered the air.
“What’s happening here?” I asked Kull.
Kull paused before answering. “I have a theory.” His voice was hushed, haunted.
“What’s your theory?”
“You really want to know? I’ll warn you, it’s troubling.”
“Kull, I need to know what’s going on down here.”
“Very well. We know that the people of this world do not define death the same way we define it. I suspect their lives are much longer than ours, and only an act of extreme violence can kill them completely. Those who die don’t simply cease to exist as we do, their bodies laid to rest, their souls passing to another existence. Instead, I believe their souls do not move on at all. They stay here, on this world, clinging to what remains of their bodies.”
I met his gaze, feeling increasingly alarmed at where this conversation was going. “They stay here?”
“Yes, their bodies die, but their souls stay, and they become the Regaymor.”
“Regaymor?”
He nodded.
“If that’s so, then why aren’t these people Regaymor?”
Kull nodded at the rows of tables. “Because they’ve found a way to keep them from changing. When I found this place earlier, I watched a body being moved down here. They removed all the vital organs, and then they trapped the body inside one of those tombs in the wall. The bodies decay slowly, and they remain somewhat cognizant, though they most likely don’t remember their former lives. They are ghosts, trapped in between life and death.”
“You’re sure about all this?”
“I’m not positive, but I’ve given it a fair amount of thought since discovering these tombs, and it seems the logical conclusion. Jeven’s people are frightened of the Regaymor above anything else. The only safe haven left on the planet is within the city, and it is because they’ve discovered how to keep their people from transforming after death.”
“I agree. It seems the most logical conclusion.” After a pause as I looked at the buckets sitting alongside the tables, I asked, “Kull, what do you think they do with the internal organs?”
He cleared his throat. “There are no farms in the city, Olive. Nowhere to grow food. I saw no ranches or livestock.”
“They’re cannibals, aren’t they?”
He nodded.
I clamped my hand over my mouth, knowing I would be sick. I’d eaten that stupid soup. Sure, I’d only sipped the broth and left the meaty stuff.
Oh shit…
Stumbling back as my stomach heaved, I purged my stomach contents on the floor of the vaults, feeling mortified that Kull watched. He bravely rubbed my back until I finished. I backed away with him at my side.
“I want to leave,” I breathed. “I don’t think I can be down here any longer.”
“I understand.”
We walked away from the rows of tables, back past the deep pit with the thousands of trapped corpses, past the original pod I’d seen first, but instead of turning toward the door we’d entered through, Kull tugged me to a door opposite where we’d entered.
“This way should lead us under the tower.”
When we rounded toward the door, voices came from up ahead.
Kull and I hid behind one of the pillars. Several guards entered the vaults, and two of them, a man and a woman carrying long pikes, neared our hiding spot. I caught some of their conversation.
“…find them down here, but it’s useless. I heard the stone was being tampered with…”
“Tampered with?”
“Yes.”
“But… why would anyone do such a thing?”
The guards continued on their way, and I turned to Kull. “Heidel and Maveryck must be close to removing the stone.”
“Yes, and if that’s so, then we’ve got to get to the sword while we can.”
We crept away from the pillar and made it to a door opposite where we’d entered. The shadowy opening was clouded with magic—the same sort of unicorn magic I’d felt in the other doorway, as well as in the mirror leading to where Jeven kept the sword.
As we halted near the rusted metal door, Kull reached for it, and I felt the magic igniting inside. I reached out and grabbed his hand.
“There’s magic in it,” I said. “Let me.”
I faced the door, feeling a spell, but it wasn’t meant to keep us out… It was meant for someone or something else.
“This spell…” I whispered. “I think it’s meant to keep the Regaymor inside this room. Kull, it’s powered by the unicorn’s stone. If Heidel and Maveryck take the stone, then all those corpses will break free of their tombs, escape, and…”
“…and kill us all,” Kull finished.
“Yes.”
The floor shuddered under our feet. Another tremor followed, causing pebbles to dislodge from the ceiling and fall to the ground. The magic in the door flickered, and then faded completely.
“They must’ve taken the stone,” I whispered.
The room shook more violently, causing one of the stalagmites to fracture and crash to the ground behind us. Screams echoed across the cavern. Guards barked orders as others shouted.
Lodged in a wall near us was a single oval-shaped tomb. The corpse inside stopped moving as the purple light diminished, but its robes transformed. Black tattered cloth replaced the corpse’s clothing. What remained of its skin and muscle tissue disappeared, leaving behind only a skeleton. The corpse flexed its fingers, the tips ended in pointed claws, and then it lifted its head. Red, pinprick eyes met mine.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
I backed away, fear making my heart beat wildly.
“Run,” Kull hissed. “Go now.”
We backed toward the door. I attempted to fling it open, but the knob wouldn’t budge when I attempted to turn it. Behind us, the sound of shattering glass echoed as the Regaymor escaped its tomb.
Chapter 12
Kull unsheathed his blade as we faced the broken tomb, but his weapon would do no good against the wispy black phantom approaching us. Frantic screams echoed from the other side of the cavern as more Regaymor broke free from their tombs.
I calmed my mind as I readied a spell, using my power to draw black magic from the stones surrounding me. I blasted out with my magic. Blinding light burst from my hands and hit the phantom in the chest, giving Kull enough time to break the door open.
The Regaymor let out a shrill wail as we escaped. I blasted out another burst of magic, repelling it long enough to escape into the tunnels. The sounds of our booted feet echoed through the corridors as we ran from the tombs. Gray stones blurred in my vision as we reached a cross-section.
“Which way?” Kull asked, breathing heavily.
I concentrated on remembering the path I’d taken with Jeven, which was hard to
do as the screams of Regaymor filled the cavern behind us, growing closer.
“This way,” I said, pointing to the hallway on our left. As we ran down the hall, the floor rumbled under our feet. Dust stirred as we descended the stairs and made it to the hallway with the mirrors.
“That one,” I said, pointing to the mirror at the end of the hall. We sprinted to it when the floor shook violently, sending several mirrors to the ground where they smashed to pieces.
The oval-shaped mirror with the golden frame hung on the wall at the hallway’s end. We dashed toward it as the tremors increased, sending more mirrors smashing to the ground. Shards splintered. Some of the shattered pieces cut into my skin. Glass crunched beneath our boots as we stopped to stand before the mirror.
“There was a spell protecting it,” I shouted over the rumbling, “but with the unicorn’s stone missing, we should be able to get through.”
I approached the mirror and placed my hand on the glass. It trembled, but didn’t fall as its smooth surface chilled my fingers. I focused on opening the gateway. Magic swirled inside the glass, its spell taking shape as I felt the power working through me.
“Take my hand,” I yelled to Kull as the magic grew brighter. He clenched my fingers tightly as the magic engulfed us, giving me the same sensation I’d felt with Jeven—of the breath being sucked from my body and the floor disappearing from underneath my feet.
As the magic faded, I felt the floor form beneath my feet. Kull and I stood in the blank white room with no walls and no floor—nothing but a mirror hanging suspended in space and a white void surrounding us.
After hearing shattering glass and crumbling rocks for so long, the silence came abruptly.
“Where’s the sword?” Kull asked, his voice reverberating.
“Jeven conjured it with a spell.” I tried to remember the words he’d used, but it wouldn’t be easy, and even if I could, I wasn’t sure his spell would work for me. This could be a problem.
Still, I didn’t take spells lightly. When Jeven had used it, I’d done my best to lock it in my memory.
Fairy World M.D., Boxed Set Two (4-6.5) Page 54