by Dante King
“It sounds like you have a history with them,” I said.
“Never did, and never intend to. Simply put, the ones who came to my temple didn’t stay long. They soon left for the depths of Danibo Forest to seek out the Lost Shrine and reclaim it. That’s all I know.”
Faryn frowned. “I’ve explored Danibo Forest for decades. I’ve never heard of the Lost Shrine.”
“I think that’s why it has its name,” I said with a wink.
Faryn flushed. “I’ve lived here for the better part of a century, and now the monastery and this shrine are only just beginning to be talked about. Forgive me, but it’s a gap in my knowledge that’s difficult to comprehend.”
“Every province has ancient secrets,” Kumi assured her. “There are places in Qihin City that I’ve never seen, that are only spoken of in the rituals and legends of our people. And Flametongue Valley has had its share of war and blood. Things are bound to be lost in times of strife.”
Tolin poured himself a cup of tea but didn’t fill the other cups. “Exactly. So, what do you want with the monks?”
“We’re supposed to bring them back to the monastery,” I said. “Which I guess means we’re headed toward the Lost Shrine to find them.”
“I’ll show you the way,” Tolin said. “You youngsters are likely to get waylaid through the woods if you’re not careful. And, since you’ve so generously come here to bother an old man’s rest, I may as well reward you for your efforts.”
Faryn bowed. “It’s always a pleasure to work with you, Tolin.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” He cackled. “But these old limbs need stretching. Finish your tea and meet me outside. I have a voracious emperor of felines to feed and provisions to pack.”
Chapter Fifteen
Tolin joined us on the front steps of the Unwashed Temple.
“Guard the temple,” he said to Master Softpaw as he scratched the cat beneath the chin. He turned to look at Faryn, Kumi, and I. “Shall we set off?”
We left the temple behind and took a path through the rice fields that snaked downhill. We hit the treeline just as the sun scattered the last of its rays through the sky. The valley’s forest was a thick swathe of tall trees, shrubbery, and leaf litter, but the locals had carved hunting trails through it.
Tolin took the lead at a shambling pace and muttered to himself as I drew level with him. The hum of insects filled the trees as night set in around us.
“...ascetics and their thrice-damned airs,” Tolin said to himself.
“Why does the Unwashed Temple look so much like the monastery?” I asked without preamble. “For a guy who claims to hate monks, you’ve got a lot of things in common with them. And what did you mean about heresy earlier? Are you actually a heretic?”
“I’m a lot of things, Swordslinger. And there’s plenty going on in the shadows around your Path that you don’t yet know about.”
“Then tell me. Forewarned is fore-armed.”
“It isn’t my place,” Tolin said evasively. “You’ll find it when it’s time for you to find it. I’ve never told you everything, lad, and I’m not about to start now. What in all that is holy is that?”
He pointed to a nearby tree. An idol had been carved into it recently, and a shiver ran down my spine as I neared it. A twisted monster with spiky fur, gaping fangs, and slitted eyes glared out at us from the tree.
I took a deep breath. “It’s a demon. Or a statue of one, at least.”
“Here? In Danibo Forest?” Faryn asked. “Surely not.”
I stepped aside and waved her closer. “Take a look for yourself.”
Faryn’s face sank as she inspected the recently carved idol within the tree. “I’ve never seen anything like this in Flametongue Valley. Have you, Tolin?”
“No. Something’s awry.” He shook his head.
“We’ve seen things like it before,” Kumi said. “Back in Hyng’ohr.”
She didn’t need to explicitly state that the idol looked a lot like the demons we’d fought there.
Branches shuffled behind Faryn, and I pushed past her. The Sundered Heart rang as I pulled it free from my hip, and the blade hissed as I ignited it. A long, lean figure with bark-like skin appeared out of the brushes.
An emerald wisp.
Its spidery fingers snapped at my face, but I ducked and took off its hands with a downward slash of my flaming sword before killing it with a thrust to the chest. Nydarth hummed in pleasure as I kicked the corpse off the end of my blade. The flames around my weapon went green as it drank the sprite’s blood from the steel.
“What was that?” Kumi drew her butterfly daggers from the small of her back and glanced around.
“Emerald wisp,” I answered. “It’s outside of the Vigorous Zone.”
“Its presence here must have something to do with this idol,” Faryn said.
“Or the shrine,” I said with a grimace.
“We should get there,” Tolin cut in. “And quickly.”
Our party continued forward, and it wasn’t long before we were joined by sporadic rustles through the surrounding brush. A pack of emerald wisps leaped from the undergrowth in a rough pincer formation. I channeled Vigor through the Sundered Heart, lit up the path with orange light, and cut down the first of the sprites as it charged toward Kumi.
I blinded a sprite with an Acid Cloud, and it squealed as the substance poured into its lungs. Before it could recover, I snapped its leg with a stomp and carved it in half with a two-handed slice. A gurgled squeak sounded from behind me, and I whirled around. Kumi wrenched her knives out of a sprite’s throat, flicked its blood into another’s eyes, and stabbed it in the torso.
Faryn summoned a cloud of razor-sharp leaves and smothered a pair of sprites. The monsters screamed as the foliage sliced them to pieces.
“Where’s Tolin?” I asked. The old man had disappeared during the fighting.
“Up here,” he said, and I looked up to see him sitting on a tree branch. He dropped to the forest floor and grinned.
I shook my head at him. “Let’s continue.”
After a few more minutes, Tolin pointed out another twisted statue of a demon, and before long, they started appearing everywhere. Every second tree bore a leering face of a demonic creature.
The last of the light faded out of the sky, and even the moonlight couldn’t penetrate the thick canopy. I poured a little Vigor into my sword, and the blade ignited, providing more than enough light to illuminate our path. The monsters would see us, along with whatever else was out here, but without my sword’s light, we were completely blind.
The sound of insects faded, and I spotted a glow in the distance.
“We’re getting close to the shrine,” Tolin said as he led us off the path and through the thick undergrowth. He pushed aside a thick set of branches, ducked under it, and beckoned us forward with a wave of his hand. I followed him under the tree and into a wide clearing.
A cluster of ancient shacks circled the edges of the space, and a large bonfire flickered in the center of the tiny village. Another glow shone through the trees from the other side of the village, and I wrinkled my nose as I caught a whiff of rotting flesh.
I siphoned the Vigor from my sword, and the flames extinguished from around the blade. My pulse raced as I followed Tolin further into the village. A wooden cart with damaged wheels sagged beside the bonfire. I glanced at Tolin, but his face was a cold mask of calm.
“Something stirs the tides of fate here,” Yono whispered. “Something tainted.”
“I don’t see a Lost Shrine,” I said to Tolin.
“We haven’t reached it yet,” he said. For the first time since I’d met him, he sounded addled. “This village shouldn’t be here.”
One of the hut’s doors banged open, and a skinny man with blackened teeth staggered drunkenly down to meet us. He wore a silly grin, and his bloodshot eyes swept over us with gleeful excitement. He started toward Tolin, arms spread wide, but I intercepted the stranger’s at
tempted hug with a palm to the chest.
“Visitors! Welcome!” the villager slurred. “Have you come to worship?”
“Worship?” an excited voice called from another house.
More doors swung open, and an assortment of 12 starved villagers came out of the broken-down shacks. Faryn and Kumi took up a subtle defensive stance to cover my back, and I rapidly took in details. Each stranger wore the same dopey grin, dilated pupils, and lines of drool dripping from their jaws. They barely looked human.
“You have come to worship?” an old woman asked insistently.
“We’re looking for monks,” I said. “Red robes, shaved heads. Were they here?”
“Ah, yes, the monks. They of the bright eyes and sweet words. They passed through here a few nights ago.” The first man laughed. “Left us many great gifts, food, and worship. Praise be to their robes and bright eyes.”
“And pretty words.” The old woman sighed.
Unease gnawed at my gut as I scanned the village for the source of rotting flesh. I could still smell it, and despite the filthy state of the villagers, it wasn’t coming from them.
“I’m going to have a look around,” I said to Tolin.
He nodded. “See to it that you don’t sheath your sword.”
I went to the cart, two or three of the villagers following me, and my eyes widened when I saw what was inside.
The remnants of emerald wisps lay in a pool of green blood. Beast cores shone through their skeletal corrals, and the stench of rotting flesh struck me like a punch. The implication hit me a moment later, and I turned to face the nearest villager.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“The guardians, they bring us food,” a man said. “So much food, such good food.”
“Do you mean the demons? The creatures carved into the trees?”
“The guardians,” another insisted. “So much food, and lovely lights to warm our souls.”
“They’re eating monsters?” Choshi asked. “Creatures from the Vigorous Zone?”
“It’s an abomination,” Yono whispered. “Such magic should not be consumed as food. It does terrible things to the mind. You have to leave, Master. These villagers are—”
“Wrong,” Nydarth interrupted with a feral snarl. “Strike them down, Master.”
A spidery hand found my robe, and I caught the owner’s wrist. Fetid breath washed over me as the man giggled at me and leaned in close. Sickly green flesh poked from the gaps in his blackened teeth. I fought off a wave of nausea.
“The Lost Shrine,” I said. “Where is it? Where are the monks?”
“Over there,” the man slurred.
He pointed to the other side of the clearing, to the second source of light that I’d seen earlier. I released his wrist and forced myself not to shiver as I pushed past him back to my friends.
Tolin’s face was still a mask of calm, but Faryn’s mouth was drawn back in an uneasy grimace. Kumi soothed her with a firm grasp on her arm and a whisper in her ear.
“There’s nothing you can do for them now,” Kumi said. “We’ll come back for them.”
“Well, Swordslinger,” Tolin said, “have you seen your fill? Found your monks? They weren’t . . . in there, were they?” He motioned toward the cart.
I shook my head. “The villagers have been eating ember sprites.”
Faryn gasped, and Kumi’s mouth dropped.
“I feared that might be the case,” Tolin said as he chewed his cheek. “But we’ve still to find the shrine.”
“You worship?” a villager asked as he held up his hands. Inside his palms were an assortment of raw organs that had likely once belonged to a sprite. The other villagers crowded behind him, their mouths upturned in idiot grins.
“Ethan,” Faryn said, in a hollow voice, “we need to help them.”
“We can’t,” I said. “Not yet at least. Once we’ve found the monks, we’ll find a way to help these people.”
“They couldn’t have done this to these poor people, surely,” Kumi whispered.
“If they did, then we’ll make them pay.”
We left the rundown village behind, and Tolin took us down a winding path beside a bubbling stream until we came to another clearing.
Surrounded by torches sputtering eldritch green flames, a pagoda stood about 10 feet wide. It was encircled by full-sized demon statues, carved from a blackened wood. Inside, on an altar of gnarled wood, two ritual daggers sat beside bowls of foul-smelling incense.
“The Lost Shrine,” Tolin spat the words like it were a curse. “It’s been corrupted.”
A single figure stepped out from behind the altar. Filthy red robes drooped over his body and marked him as a Dying Sun monk. A mustache framed his mouth and dropped to his chin. His hollow cheeks suggested he hadn’t eaten for a good while.
“Do you recognize him?” I asked Tolin.
“Barely. But he’s one of those who visited my temple.”
He had left Tolin two days ago, and that wasn’t long enough to show signs of starvation, so his emaciated appearance had to be magical in nature.
The monk smiled at us, and an oily sensation curled in my gut.
“Greetings, travelers. Have you come to worship?”
“We’ve come to take you back to Dying Sun,” I said. “Along with your brothers.”
The monk laughed. “And you are?” His voice cracked like gravel under a heavy boot.
“Ethan Murphy Lo Pashat. The Immortal Swordslinger.”
The monk’s faux-friendliness vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“You dare blaspheme the sacred order so? You cannot be here. Leave us to our meditations. Our work is not yet complete. Our directions were to restore the old places of worship.”
“You haven’t restored it,” Kumi said quietly. “You’ve destroyed it with filth.”
The monk wheeled on her. “And just who are you to speak to me so?”
Kumi gulped, but her face hardened, and a steely light touched her eyes. “Princess Kumi of Qihin City, acolyte of the Temple of the Deep. I serve the gods. But you have left them behind.”
The monk stalked toward Kumi. I stepped in front of her, my sword in both hands. The blade ignited after I sent Vigor racing into its steel. The flames reflected in the monk’s eyes, and he halted his prowling step to examine the weapon in my hands.
“That’s far enough,” I said. “We’re here under Archpriest Tymo’s orders. He charges you to remember your sacred duties to your order and return home.”
“I’m not finished!” the monk howled. “You’ve interrupted my duties!”
I glanced at the demonic statues around the Lost Shrine. “Is that so?”
The monk raised a shaking finger and pointed to Tolin. “And you brought along a blasphemer. An evildoer. A pathless wretch. A vulture who picks at dead bones.”
“I really can’t abide zealots,” Tolin muttered. “So highly strung.”
“Silence!” the monk screamed. “You do not talk here!”
“Where are the others?” I leveled my gaze at the monk, ready to cut him down if he so much as moved in the wrong direction.
A manic grin stretched the monk’s face. “They serve the sacred order, just as I do, Swordslinger.”
The soft haze of Physical Augmentation rippled around the monk, and he jumped back 20 feet to the altar in a single bound. The monk’s crazed eyes didn’t leave us as he scooped up the two ritual daggers. He slashed his own forearms with the curved blades and flung his blood wide.
“My brothers pursue their duties. As do I. But you will not interfere with them, Swordslinger.”
The demon statues cracked loudly around him and came to life. Dust fell from their fur as they stepped off their small pedestals. Rusted weapons gleamed in their hands, and a furious red light shone from their eyes.
One enemy had suddenly turned into 13.
Chapter Sixteen
The corrupted monk came at me in a blur. He suddenly appear
ed in front of me, and I barely managed to block his twin daggers with the Sundered Heart. He counter-attacked, slashing the daggers at my throat with terrifying speed, and I swayed back to avoid the strike, but I wasn’t quite fast enough. A dagger nicked my neck, and warm blood dribbled out over my robes. Vigor swam through my water pathways, gave me a burst of speed, and I slashed across his torso. The monk blocked my blade with his bare forearm, and sparks flew from the contact, as though his flesh was made of concrete.
“He’s faster and stronger than Horix was,” Nydarth warned me.
“It’s a good thing I’m faster and stronger than I was back then, too,” I replied.
I jumped back to get a little distance and sent an Untamed Torch at the monk. He didn’t even stagger backward when the projectile slammed into him, and fire crawled along his robes before disappearing completely. The garments weren’t singed in the slightest, and he didn’t appear to have been burned at all by my technique.
“You have learned our ways well, Swordslinger,” he said, “but I have trained for centuries. Your power is that of a child’s before his father.”
“So, should I call you ‘Daddy’?” I asked.
“Your jests simply indicate a weakness in concentration,” the monk snarled at me. “And distractions destroy your ability to Augment in every form, Swordslinger.”
“I appreciate the lecture. Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the monastery and teach me yourself? Kick back over some tea and soup? Talk about all of this?”
The sound of clashing metal echoed through the clearing behind me as my friends fought the demons that had been statues only moments ago.
Kumi’s Song of the Sea carried the water from the nearby stream in long ribbons that attacked the demons like striking serpents. Smoke billowed from the demons’ black fur, and they voiced their agony in high-pitched squeals. I’d never seen Kumi’s magic do anything more than heal, but maybe this had been something the monks had taught her. Faryn stood in front of Tolin, slowing the demons down with Strangling Roots and bursts of Smothering Leaves.
The corrupted monk rushed me, but I summoned an Acidic Cloud that materialized around him in a greenish haze. His manic laugh echoed through the sounds of battle as his aura vaporized the airborne poison. I channeled a Smothering Mist to obscure his sight, but steam hissed off the monk as he jumped out of the cloud and ran headlong into a Plank Pillar I summoned. His aura incinerated the wooden pillar into ash, and I slashed at the cinders as they fell toward me.