by Heath Pfaff
He laughed then, a sound as black as the liquid in the room, and it bubbled and churned like that liquid too. “I don’t know.” He said again as the laughter faded. “By some inner demon, or some outer demon, I was compelled to seek you tonight. You are the first to come here, the first student.” He smiled. “I was excited that you were still alive. I’ve watched you. You’ve done well. I’ve seen stronger, but you grew quickly. You learn well. You don’t push ahead of everyone, and your test scores are not great, but you’re adaptable. Your Will is much stronger than last time we met, dormant, but growing.”
I wasn't sure how to reply to the praise so I just shrugged. “Thank you, I suppose. Was there something I was to see down here?” I felt like I needed to keep him moving towards whatever goal it was he had. He seemed agitated and nervous, and as I spoke the small smile on his lips fell away.
“Yes, there are things to see. Follow me. Stay very close. You can’t swim here. If you fall, it’s over. The madness will have you, and there is no coming back from that.” With that he turned and started walking again, this time out across the rail-less pathway that stretched across the strange black lake. He gave no indication what he meant by “the madness will have you” and I, perhaps foolishly, didn’t get up the nerve to ask him to clarify.
I felt a terrible pressure as we walked, as of something surrounding me and squeezing. It began to get dark fast, and then Ghoul’s Will came to bear, and the light around us seemed to focus so that it was just around us and nowhere else. The rest of the room went black, and only the area immediately surrounding us was visible.
“Only Will users are supposed to be able to cross this bridge. That’s why there are no torches any further. If you can’t bring your own light, then you are not meant to be here.” He laughed in that unsettling way that he often did. “It has been getting increasingly difficult with time, either that or I’m getting increasingly weaker with time. I suppose either is possible. There has been a great deal of time passed since this all started. Still, there would be so much trouble if anyone knew I’d brought a guest.” This made him grin darkly.
“Of course I brought you anyway. It’s a crime, you know. The others would be furious with me.” The path turned suddenly, and it had gotten much narrower. There was now just enough room to walk on it without falling off into the black that lurked below. “I can imagine their faces now. They already hate me, but this would push them over the edge. They might well decide I wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. This place is one of their precious secrets. They don’t want people to know this is where it started. They think it’s dangerous for others to know. They think I’m dangerous.”
The light flared around us and I felt a wave of tension in the air that originated from Ghoul. “They’d be right, of course. About all of it. They should have let me go long, long before this. They think my work is vital to the Wardens.” He laughed once more, and then the path took another sharp turn at an odd angle. “Like all people who build themselves an ideology, they’ve lost their way in the pursuit of that. Power is a poison, Lillin. Those who seek it will always find it kills them eventually. Some may live long, long lives of wealth and extravagance, but all that breathes doesn’t live. A thing can be dead and still be going. Ideology does that.” He stopped suddenly and turned to me, rotating on the narrow platform as though he wasn’t the least bit afraid he might fall, though I’d become increasingly nervous of exactly that.
“Remember that, dead things aren’t necessarily done things. Some dead things keep going. Yes, that’s important.” His words were intense, loud, they almost echoed in the stifling room, and then he turned again and kept moving.
We walked for a bit longer and then I saw a light ahead of us. We headed in that direction and eventually the walkway opened up onto another area. We walked forward a bit, the source of light coming more into focus as we moved. I could see a pedestal with something that looked like a small ember of coal atop it. The light it gave off was purple in hue, casting the room in strange shadows. I was so fixated on the light that I didn’t even see the things moving in the darkness at the edge of this new source of light until I’d almost reached the pedestal.
A terrible, indistinct groaning sounded and something dashed forward only to stop a few inches into the light as a chain snapped taut. I whipped about and fell into a combat stance as Ghoul began to cackle again. My eyes took in the thing before me and I recoiled in horror, almost backing too far in the other direction as another one of the things ran towards the light from the side I hadn’t been watching.
“Careful girl, there isn’t much room here for wandering about.” Ghoul warned, and I forced myself to hold in place and look at the monstrosities before me.
They looked like they might have been people at some point. Their flesh was peeled away and they were covered in the black stuff from the strange lake we’d just crossed. Their eyes were gone, sunken pits in their head, and their bodies looked as though they’d been reshaped by the messy black ichor. Their bones were heavier, thicker, their muscles larger, bulging in places. Their teeth were all sharp, needles hanging from their skeletal heads, and they had black horns that looked like they’d torn holes in the top of their skulls.
“What are they?” I asked, and was upset to hear my voice was shaky.
“They’re what came before the golems.” Ghoul answered. “They’re named as I am, Ghouls. We couldn’t get them to truly submit. They’ll attack anything with a Will weaker than their own. They’re as old as I am, forever trapped as they are. It’s almost impossible to kill them. We destroyed one, but it had to be torn into tiny bits, and those just kept moving. We finally used Everburn to consume the pieces, but that was the only thing that stopped it. They are possessed of a singular need to exist, a malignant yearning to consume and destroy no matter what.”
“I don’t understand why I’m here.” I repeated the words again, feeling a bit shaky as I looked at the horrors straining at their chains to reach me. They showed no interest at all in Ghoul.
“I don’t know either, but you should be impressed. Very few have seen this. Look, it’s an ember of Everburn. No student has ever laid eyes upon it before.” He gestured towards the purple glowing flame and my eyes slid to it in surprise. It was one thing to hear about something in stories, legends, but another to see it made manifest.
“It’s smaller than I thought . . . dimmer.” I said, looking into the churning purple thing. It felt malevolent in a way. I couldn’t say exactly what gave me that impression, but it did seem dangerous and dark, something alien and terrible that didn’t want me to exist in any way. It was different than the black stuff, but equally foul.
“This is just an ember, Lil, not the fire itself. The fire is kept somewhere else, a place where only a powerful Will user can even hope to go.” Ghoul’s voice filled the space between us and drew my attention from the purple glow.
“It’s through one of the doors?” I asked.
Ghoul shrugged. “In a way. The doors aren’t what they seem. They can take you to places that exist if they’re used one way, but often times they take you to places that have already finished existing, or at least are cycling through existence, stuck in a loop. They are shards of reality stolen from time, pieces of other worlds brought into focus for as long as you are inside the space they create. When you exit the door, that space closes again and ceases to be until it’s reopened. You can open one door to another, which actually takes you to a real place, but that requires more power, and some of the doors are impossibly far away. Everburn is nestled at the edge of reality itself, a place so isolated and distant that I doubt anyone will ever see it again.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised that the symbol of our order would be locked away.
“Not all of the stories we tell you . . . nor the ones we tell each other, are based in reality. Everburn may or may not be the elemental source of Will, but it is an evil, dark thing. It once rested in this cavern, put here by something we can�
��t begin to fathom, and look what became of this place. Believe me, it is better locked away. Those who came in direct contact with it were . . . “ golem shivered. “Well, they were changed.” He nodded at the two things on chains. “These aren’t so bad, really. You can see what they are. When the Blackened came back from the fires, they were something else entirely. It took a monumental force to suppress them.“
I felt a chill go up my spine and had to manually put it in check. Were the heroes of legend really heroes? What did “suppress” mean? “This is why you brought me here?” I asked aloud, suddenly not sure if I’d get to sleep that night or not.
He shook his head. “No, this is a detour. I brought you here to show you my latest work. It’s important that you see . . . for some reason. It’s a purpose. It brought you to me in the halls. Come.” He gestured with his head and began to walk again. I fell in quickly at his heels, not eager to be left alone in this place, his words rolling through my mind. I’d been “brought” to him. That felt strangely accurate, but I didn’t understand it at all.
We walked a ways and then there was a small door leading off the primary chamber. Ghoul opened it without touching the door, which had no latches or handles on the side facing us, and then we went inside and the portal sealed shut behind us. I heard it lock, though again there was no visible mechanism on this side of the door at all. It was clear that it had been designed to only be useable by the Wardens. It was Will locked.
Beyond the door was a finished corridor which looked like it could have been anywhere in the academy above, as though the strange cave system beyond hadn’t really happened. It felt almost like we’d stepped through a magical door, though I hadn’t felt the shift I normally did when going through one of those. It was a very subtle thing, something I hadn’t even noticed at first, but now I’d come to expect the sensation when stepping through the magical doors of the academy. This was different. This was just a finished area off of an ancient cave.
The corridor itself was simple. A wood paneled floor, with undecorated walls and a low ceiling. The hall was wide enough to walk with both arms stretched without touching the walls, but not much more. There were wall sconces at staggered intervals on either side, illuminating the area in hues of fire light. Ghoul stopped suddenly as we neared the end of the corridor and it opened into a large room with with heavy stone walls. I could see some kind of table in the center of the room, though not much else beyond Ghoul himself who stood blocking the view.
“This . . . what I have to show you. You’re not going to like it. I’m not a great judge of others, but I’m not immune to empathy entirely. This will not be nice for you, but it is necessary.” He looked over his shoulder and back at me. “You are the only one I’ve ever shown this to, Lillin. Some things are not meant to be seen, and this is one of them. It will change you, but I think that’s why I’ve brought you here. You need to change. You’re weak as you are now. Too weak. Will stirs inside of you, but it’s asleep. You lack resolution. This will give you resolution, or it will destroy you.”
His words triggered a fear response in me that almost made me turn and head back for that door behind me. I wondered if I could find someway to unlock the door myself and get out of here and . . . what? Would I go back into the dark beyond by myself?
“What if I don’t want to see, Ghoul? Will you take me from here?” I asked him, even as my mind turned towards the table behind him and whatever might lay atop it. Beyond the fear was a deep and terrible curiosity that wanted desperately to know what lay there. What was it Ghoul was showing me? Why would it change me?
He turned to me and his voice softened as he leaned in closer. “I will. I will take you from these tunnels as safely as I brought you, and you will never see me or this place again. I will wash it all from your mind, rip the memories from you and leave you untouched to resume your path through this school. I promise you that Lillin. I know I shouldn’t. I can feel the ache to show you this in every piece of my body, but I would spare you this if you want me to.” Ghoul said, so much compassion in his voice that I thought he might weep for a moment.
In that moment it would have been so easy to turn my back on all of this and leave. Secrets were often best left as the property of others. Not knowing could be a wonderful thing, and he had made it so easy. I could forget everything.
“If I go on, will you wipe my memories then as well?” I asked. “If I ask you to after I see what you have to show me?”
He shook his head, expression firming. “No. You’ll probably want me to, but I won’t. If you go past this point, then we have committed to a path together. We’ve chosen to accept that there is something that compels us forward, and we are willing to listen, to entertain that something. Once you invite the darkness, Lillin, you become something new and you can never expel it from within. It knows you, and you will know it.” He tilted his head a bit as if listening to something. “Can you hear it?”
I raised my own ear, listening intently. I could hear the drip of water somewhere, and a strange hum that seemed to reverberate through the walls. I heard the faint sound of breathing coming from beyond both of us, in the direction of the table, but other than that nothing. Strangely though, I felt a strong compulsion to see what was in the room again. It almost felt like a push on the back, an urge to take a step further into the room.
“There it is.” Ghoul said softly. “A voice you hear not with your ears, but in the pit of your stomach. It’s a tugging pull. Something dark moves with intention, and we are pulled in the twisting vortex of its passing.”
I shivered. “I think I do hear it.” I said, looking past him at the room again. Since I’d reached this school I’d had precious few points of choice. There were no decisions for me anymore. I simply did what I had to do, but here one was facing me. “Alright. Show me what’s in the room.” I knew as I spoke them that those words were a terrible mistake. I had committed myself to a dark path.
Ghoul nodded. “Alright, follow me.” He said, and then he turned and marched into the room, and I came after him. There was a great rising trepidation inside of me that increased with every step until I began to make out the table in front of me and what was on it. Trepidation fled to horror and disgust, and then horror and realization.
The human body on the table was flayed open, the skin slit and peeled back to expose the workings beneath like some kind of macabre dissection. Nerves had been delicately dissected from the body and were painstakingly sewn into hooks of strange black metal. This person was being turned into a golem. I knew enough to understand that now.
It wasn’t pleasant to see, but at first I didn’t understand the full extent of the horror, and then my eyes caught upon a patch of discarded skin. More than that, a face that had been scraped from a skull and left to rot on the table next to the body, an unneeded bit of the process. Alone it was a terrible thing. Without attachments or any knowledge about the person I was seeing changed it sent echoes of despair coursing through me, but then I recognized whose face I was looking at and the despair was all the more powerful. The skull tattoo was the first sign of familiarity. They were all the same in many ways, but each was also a little different, just enough to be recognizable to those who saw them constantly.
Even without any facial structure beneath the skin to hold it in place, I recognized who I was seeing, and the realization hit me firmly in the gut, making me feel instantly sick.
“Ori . . . “ The name fell from my shocked tongue, and the body’s eyes turned to me. By the Blackened she was alive and aware. The eyes, held into their sockets by muscle and nothing else, turned to me and looked upon me with pleading agony. I could hear the silent plea for help, the scream to make it all stop, the pain and suffering. She would have gladly taken death in that moment. I couldn’t give her that. I couldn’t do anything in that moment. This was the worst thing I could have ever seen. I was shaken to my core, snapped like the end of a whip, the shock deafening me to the world for a moment.
&n
bsp; I took a step back and fell as my legs gave way. Ghoul caught me. “It’s alright, Lillin. This is just a stage in her progression. Soon enough I will remove her skull and spine from her body and she will be safely nestled in a golem.”
I looked up at him in disbelief. “She will suffer forever!” I said, horrified. “Ori was in love! She wanted to finish all of this and get back to her lover, how could you . . . “
“Ori is in love. She is still Ori. Nothing has changed about who she is in her mind. That will exist as long as these golems exist. That is the nature of what I create. Everything that Ori was will continue on forever in a march of screaming agony that cannot end.” He answered, voice cold and impassive.
“Oh Ori . . . “ I whispered, shaking my head and looking at the horrified eyes that looked at me, and then back at her own ruined body. She was a monster now, in terrible pain, and all of her hopes were gone. Death would have been better.
“Death would have been better.” I said it out loud.
He nodded. “Of course it would have, but then someone else would be here. One every year. Every year, without fail.”
“No!” I yelled, and then I reached out and tore the knife from his belt, diving for the table in the center of the room. I wouldn’t let this be her fate. I wouldn’t let her suffer like she was. This was too terrible. “No!” I yelled again, and then I was caught. I was grabbed mid-leap, caught in the air as though a massive hand had reached out and taken hold of me. I just stopped, and then I was slammed roughly to the ground.