Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger

by Philip Blood

  “You’re going to waste my perfume?” she asked.

  “I’ll buy you some more if we survive.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said, getting the bottle out of her waist purse.

  It was surprisingly large, for a perfume bottle.

  “This must be the expensive stuff,” G’Taklar said, facetiously.

  “It belonged to my mother, you seem happy I have it,” she replied.

  “You’re right, I’m sorry,” G’Taklar apologized. He opened the container and put a drop on his forefinger, then rubbed it between the finger and thumb.

  “It feels oily, doesn’t it?” Jatar asked.

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” G’Taklar replied.

  Following Jatar's instructions, he wrapped his shirt tightly around the end of a long bone and then carefully poured the perfume over the material. He applied it slowly to let it soak into the cloth so that he didn’t lose a drop. Eventually, he lit the makeshift torch and they were ready to proceed.

  G’Taklar used the light of the torch to study the room; the corridor seemed to be the only exit, so he led the frightened girl in that direction.

  She followed close behind him and they entered the corridor. It was eight feet wide and turned out to be only fifteen feet long. It emptied into another chamber the same size as the one they had just left. This one was full of bones as well.

  On the far side of this room, there was the beginning of another corridor. They climbed over the bones and continued.

  They found themselves in a third room and like the first and second, it was filled with bones.

  “Is there no end to these bones? I never want to touch another bone in my whole lifetime,” Rachael complained, trying to wipe the bone dust off her hands by rubbing them on her dress. She wasn’t getting anywhere because the dress was covered as well.

  G’Taklar didn’t think it wise to point that out.

  “Look!” he exclaimed pointing across the room and holding up the torch.

  On the other side of the room they could see a large stone door, but when they climbed over the bones to the other side of the room, they found the door locked shut. G’Taklar tried pounding on it, but it didn’t budge. It felt solid enough to withstand an army.

  Looking back at the piles of bones G’Taklar wondered if an army of creatures really had tried to escape this tomb.

  Holding his torch up to better light the room, G’Taklar spotted a dark hole against the wall to the right of the door. Climbing over the bones they went and looked at the spot, it turned out to be a hole in the stone wall. They could see chip marks all around the edges.

  “It looks like something chipped and clawed its way out of here over many years time,” Jatar thought to G’Taklar.

  “How could anything claw its way through solid stone?” G’Taklar asked.

  “It would take a long time, but other than eat his fellows, I don’t think it had anything else to do,” Jatar guessed.

  “Is that what you think happened?” G’Taklar asked in awe.

  “Do you have a better theory?” Jatar responded.

  “No,” then to Rachael he said, “Well, we have our way out of this chamber, stay behind me,” he added unnecessarily.

  She clasped her hands on either side of his hips and followed, watching over his shoulder. Once out of the hole they found themselves in a passage with a high ceiling supported by tall square pillars. Looking left, they could see the other side of the locked door into the room of bones.

  G’Taklar decided to turn right and see what they could find in that direction.

  As they moved their torch light interacted with the pillars and cast weird shadows that twisted and moved along the walls. G’Taklar could feel Rachael shaking through her hands attached to his hips.

  “You don’t have to hold on to my hips and walk behind me anymore.”

  Her reply was emphatic, “Yes, I do.”

  They came to another of the huge doors, like the one outside the bone chambers. G’Taklar lifted their torch to illuminate the door. More of the Serinna writing was inscribed, but unlike the inscription outside, these words were not worn by the weather.

  “It says, ‘Entombed within dwell the evil one’s creatures of darkness. Heed these words, his creatures live unholy lives; let these doors remain forever closed, lest the evil consume your blood.’”

  “Souldead,” Jatar said in his head.

  “Are they talking about souldead?” Rachael asked.

  “That’s what we think,” G’Taklar replied.

  “We?” she asked.

  “I mean, that’s what I think,” he quickly corrected.

  “Could they really be alive after that many years?” she asked, shivering.

  “If they had enough food, and if there were a lot of them maybe they could eat each other, it might be possible. They don’t require much in the way of sustenance to live. I’ve read stories where they have survived for years with very little food. Remember, they aren’t even remotely human anymore, Vorg created them from humans, but he redesigned them to survive almost anything,” G’Taklar explained.

  “It seems so long ago; how can things from three thousand years ago come out of their crypts to haunt us now?” she pondered.

  “This tomb is only around a thousand years old, I don’t know for sure that it held souldead,” G’Taklar said.

  “Let’s get moving, I want to get out of here as soon as possible,” she said, giving his hips a push to get him going.

  They continued down the passage and passed another of the sealed doors, this time on the opposite side of the hall. It had the same inscription as the last door, so they moved on.

  They came to a wide chamber. The wall on their right continued straight, to become part of another hallway that mirrored the one down which they had traveled. To the left, another hall continued off the pillar lined chamber. Centered in the chamber under a curving arch in the wall to their right there was a monstrous door. It split down the middle into two doors and the right side door was slightly ajar. A large iron bar that had at one time barred the door lay a few feet away on the floor.

  G’Taklar held the torch aloft again to light the inscription over the door. The carved letters were three times the size of the prior words they had seen.

  He read the inscription aloud. “Here lies the hidden killer, scourge of the earth, destroyer of the holy, Desecrator of souls.” G’Taklar paused, and Rachael noticed he was shaking for the first time.

  “What’s wrong, G’Taklar, what’s scaring you?” she asked, terrified at his fear.

  “I only know one being referred to as ‘The Desecrator’ in all literature. The evilest creature to walk the earth, you know his name, all people know that name. Children are warned to be good or ‘He’ will take them. He is the creature of evil in every recorded civilization, without exception. He is holy G’lan’s nemesis, the creature known as: ‘Vorg, The Desecrator’,” G’Taklar intoned solemnly.

  “You’re not trying to tell me that this is Vorg’s tomb? He died over three thousand years ago, G’lan himself came back to defeat him! And… and he didn’t die in the desert, it was on some mountain,” Rachael replied. Everyone knew at least some version of the historical battle between G’lan and Vorg.

  “This is what the rest of the inscription says: ‘Vorg, The Desecrator, returned from the dead and destroyed our people by the thousands, but by G’lan’s immortal spirit he was defeated once again. Let no man open this door lest the world be destroyed by the evil one’s hand. May his soul never return from the Dark Plane to wreak havoc among the innocent people of this world. Leave this tomb sealed or die the death of the souldead,’ and it’s signed, ‘Chamberlain of the Star’, see there is his star symbol placed at the center of the door,” G’Taklar pointed out.

  “Who is the Chamberlain of the Star?” she asked.

  “The ruler of the Serinna,” he answered.

  “But the door is open,” she said quietly.
>
  “Yes, I have seen that. Perhaps we had best see what is inside,” G’Taklar said resignedly.

  “Are you insane? I’m not going in Vorg’s tomb!” Rachael exclaimed.

  Jatar’s calm thoughts spoke in G’Taklar’s head, “You’re right, ‘Tak, we need to know what has happened in that tomb.”

  G’Taklar answered Rachael, “Then you’ll have to wait here while I go in, we need to see what is in there, or not in there.”

  “I’m not staying out here in the dark!” she answered.

  “Then you’ll have to come in because that’s where the light is going,” he explained and headed for the door. Her hands finally released his hips.

  “G’lan, what have I gotten into?” she asked the air, but nothing answered, except the echo of her own words around the vast hall.

  G’Taklar approached the huge door cautiously and noted that it stood over twenty feet high. The right side was open far enough to leave a gap and show that the stone door was two feet thick.

  “It must have taken a train of horses to pull this monster open,” he thought to his cousin’s imprint.

  Jatar didn’t comment.

  G’Taklar stuck his torch in through the opening and looked around without entering. He saw a large room with a domed ceiling rising high above the floor. The center of the room had a raised dais, with three steps leading up the oval shape. On the dais was an immense sarcophagus made of black stone. The remains of a log framework were still suspended over the top of the sarcophagus, though the ropes, block, and tackle had been removed.

  It was obvious that the framework had been employed to move the lid off the gigantic sarcophagus. The lid still lay on top but skewed to the side to allow access to the interior of the stone coffin.

  Boxes, chests, and tables lay strewn and broken over the floor; this tomb had been plundered.

  “Look in the coffin,” Jatar advised.

  “Is that necessary? We know it was opened, whatever was inside was released,” G’Taklar debated.

  “Perhaps, but we need to know,” Jatar reasoned.

  G’Taklar took a deep breath and then said, “All right, I’ll look.” He entered the tomb.

  Rachael was suddenly behind him, following close. G’Taklar went to the sarcophagus, but he had to first move and then stand on an empty chest to get up high enough to look inside.

  He didn’t find what he had expected.

  “It isn’t empty!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh G’lan, are you telling me there’s a grisly rotting body in there?” Rachael asked shivering uncontrollably from where she was standing next to the chest that G’Taklar stood upon.

  “No, there’s a bit of a skeleton and some clothes, but everything else has rotted away!” he exclaimed excitedly.

  “Why do you sound so happy about it?” she demanded, angry at his lack of fear when she was terrified.

  “From the state these bones are in, this has to be the body that was put into this tomb by the Serinna, and that means that even if this was Vorg, which I now doubt, he is a pile of dead bones, not alive and escaped from his tomb!” G’Taklar reasoned.

  “You’re sure he didn’t kill a grave robber and leave him in the tomb?” Rachael suggested, not yet ready to let her childhood monster die so easily.

  “Of course, these logs are fairly recent, look at the footprints in the dust,” he said pointing to the marks that were obviously different from their fresh ones.

  “How long do you think it’s been since they broke in here to steal what treasure they could find?” G’Taklar asked Jatar.

  “From the thin layer of dust that has settled in their prints, I’d guess within the last ten years,” he answered.

  “They probably broke in within the past ten years; a body would still be decomposing if it were that fresh. No, whoever died here is still very dead. I feel better already,” G’Taklar said to Rachael.

  “I’ve never seen anyone so happy about finding a corpse,” Rachael said, shaking her head, but G’Taklar’s enthusiasm was helping to banish her fears.

  “What about that creature from the bones room, wasn’t he still alive?” she suddenly remembered.

  “At the time he clawed his way out, yes, but who knows how long ago that was now? He is either dead or escaped and gone. It’s still pretty serious if he escaped into the outside world, any creature that is mean enough to survive hundreds of years in a tomb with only his fellow monsters to feed upon has got to be nasty.” G’Taklar reasoned.

  Rachael raised a hand and G’Taklar took it and pulled her up onto the top of the chest next to him. She glanced over the lip of the sarcophagus and then said in a whisper, “So this was once Vorg.”

  “I don’t think this really was Vorg, it doesn’t make sense. According to history Vorg lived around three thousand years ago, this guy,” and he gestured toward the sarcophagus with his thumb, “is a baby in comparison. He was probably an evil man, who led the opposing armies. He might even have been a necromancer, even in this age they are still around trying to duplicate Vorg’s powers, and have been ever since the master of evil was destroyed. The Serinna probably caught and killed this necromancer and then, because he was so evil, they assumed he was Vorg returned from the dead,” G’Taklar theorized.

  “You’re just making this up,” Rachael said.

  “Yes, but it’s a good theory, perhaps I can find some facts to validate it!” he exclaimed excitedly.

  “Some other time,” Jatar thought to him, “‘Tak, it’s been longer than you think in here, the Tchulians may be getting close. You have to find a way out of here soon or they will corner you,” Jatar reminded his host.

  “How long has it been?” G’Taklar suddenly wondered. He tried to estimate, but they had moved pretty slowly. It had taken him some time to translate the inscriptions, and making the torch had used more; crawling over the bones, helping Rachael through the hole in the wall, all had taken time.

  “Come on Rachael, let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “I’d drink to that if I had anything to toast with,” she replied, climbing down from the chest and heading for the large door.

  Once outside the door they stood in the chamber with the three passages leading away. G’Taklar decided to go down the one perpendicular to the one they had first come down. They traveled swiftly through the pillar lined halls, eager to escape this tomb. G’Taklar was worried, he thought they’d used more time than they should have and if the soldiers had kept riding during the day they might be very close.

  Light suddenly streamed into the hall from up ahead. The sounds of boards being pull loose from something echoed down the hall.

  G’Taklar and Rachael froze, and then they heard the unmistakable voice of Sergeant Herms cajoling his men to greater efforts.

  “G’lan, we’re trapped,” G’Taklar cursed in a whisper. He grabbed Rachael’s hand and turned to run back down the hall, towing Rachael behind.

  A moment later they reached the ‘T’ intersection of the corridors. “Try the left, we know the right leads to a dead end,” Jatar advised.

  “Don’t use those words,” G’Taklar pleaded, turning left as Jatar had suggested.

  They ran down the hall looking for any place to hide or escape. On their way, they passed three of the large doors that were just like the one that led into the chamber of bones. Eventually, they came to the end of the hall, but there was no way out.

  “I hope you have one of those fabulous plans that get people like Furnian the Invincible out of bad situations like this, otherwise, we may be in for some serious trouble momentarily,” G’Taklar thought desperately to Jatar.

  “If there’s no way out and nowhere to hide, do the next best thing, make them think we got out,” Jatar answered.

  “I’ll bite, how?” G’Taklar asked.

  “Try unbarring that door,” was Jatar’s suggestion, “and hurry,” he added.

  “Come on Rachael help me get the bars off this door,” G’Taklar said quie
tly, so as not to be heard.

  “What if some souldead thing is still alive in there!” she hissed back.

  “We’ll gamble, besides, it would have to have died long ago. Grab the bar, OK, on three, heave. One, two, three!” he counted out quietly and then strained upward on the first of the three iron bars that kept the door from being opened by anything within the chamber. After a moment of strained effort, they both stopped, the bar hadn’t budged.

  “Let’s try the second one, maybe we’ll have more luck,” G’Taklar suggested.

  They strained and this bar slowly gave, rust grinding out between the slots and the bar. A moment later it came completely loose.

  “Use it to pry out the other two, but hurry!” Jatar encouraged.

  G’Taklar relayed the idea and Rachael helped him pry the other two bars out of their slots. Both bars fell to the ground, clanging loudly. They could not stop them as the bars were heavy and their hands were busy holding the pry bar.

  When the second bar hit the ground something on the other side of the door struck it resoundingly. Dust and corrosion trickled down around the edges of the door.

  Both Rachael and G’Taklar backed fearfully away from the unbarred door and what wanted to get out from the other side.

  “Drop that bar, put out your torch and get behind a pillar, now!” Jatar insisted.

  “There’s something alive in there,” G’Taklar said unnecessarily.

  “Get behind a pillar!” Jatar mentally yelled.

  That woke G’Taklar up and he quickly smothered the torch with his foot on the ground and grabbed Rachael’s hand so that he could pull her behind the closest pillar.

  They were just in time. They heard the sound of multiple boots echoing on the hard stone floor. Soon they could see the flickering light of torches coming down the hall.

  “Look, there’s what made the sounds we heard; they must have gone through this door, see the dust?” the soldier said, pointing to the rust that had fallen from the cracks and the recent footprints of G’Taklar and Rachael at the door.

  “Get that door open, but remember, I want them taken alive,” the gruff voice of Sergeant Herms commanded.