by B. V. Larson
Gruum reached with great speed and grabbed the girl. He drew her to him, and whirled her around. Her feet left the floor and took flight with the rest of her. He spun around and set her down again as far from the carpet as possible.
Gawina made a wild sound. Gruum ignored her and stared at the floor, looking for the shadow. He had felt the madness it brought on once, and never wanted to feel its bite again.
When he stepped back and turned to face the priestess, he found her standing with a small, curved dagger in her hand. It had a wicked glint to it, as if the blade had been soaked in oily poison. Her face was a rictus of rage.
“You touched me. You talked of temptation, then took advantage,” she spat out the words.
Gruum smiled. “You could have sunk that dirk between my shoulders, but you didn’t,” he said. “I think you enjoyed my attentions.”
Gawina made as if to slash him, and he caught her wrist and pushed her back.
“Too late now,” he said.
“Why did you make a fool of me?” Gawina demanded.
Gruum pointed to the carpets. “You see that dark spot, that waxy substance that absorbs light? Watch it, see it moving?”
Gawina flicked her eyes in the direction of the carpets, clearly expecting a trick. She caught sight of the moving pool of shadow and her dagger sunk down to her side. “What is that thing?”
“It is Therian’s pet. He keeps it here to ward off unwanted visitors. It reached for you and was about to bite you.”
She stared. “That is why you violated my person?”
Gruum tilted his head. “Well, it wasn’t the only reason.”
Gawina hissed again and whirled away. She marched out of the chambers. At the doors, she stopped and turned back. “Remember what I said. The Red Order must be stopped.”
“Really? What of the monster your sisters are building in the Necropolis? Must you be stopped as well?”
She blinked at him. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Gruum scoffed. “Come back to me when you wish to speak truthfully.”
She left then, and Gruum exited soon after.
He did not bother to snuff out the lamps on his way out. He had no wish to step upon those carpets. If the whole palace burnt, he would prefer it to the black madness that dwelt in Therian’s bedchambers.
-8-
Being unable to locate Therian, Gruum used the last hours of darkness to sleep in an alcove full of overstuffed chairs. It was a dusty spot between the library and the throne room. As a further benefit, both places that were lightly trafficked.
Hours passed. He awoke slowly, lifting a single eyelid and looking around blearily. Sunlight streamed in from a high window. The light was pale and bluish in tint, but it was better than nothing. Such was a summer morning in Corium.
He opened his second eye, and then caught sight of Nadja. She sat upon a low table nearby, with her knees drawn up under her chin. She stared at him as if he were one of Therian’s experimentally dissected creatures.
“Do you remember your dream?” she asked.
Gruum sat up and stretched. Normally, he would have chided himself for not having awakened when she approached, but his rules were different when Nadja was involved. He rarely heard her whispering feet.
Gruum thought hazily. There was something…but he could not grasp it with his mind. A world that had been vividly clear a moment before had now evaporated. “I don’t recall any dreams.”
“Pity. You dreamt of something. I sat here with you for two hours. You slept fitfully, but try as I might, I could not join you.”
Gruum felt a pang of unease. Was this girl working her own sorcery now as well? “Why do you want to share my dreams?” he asked.
“I want to meet them.”
Gruum did not bother to ask the girl of whom she spoke. He knew she meant the Dragons. “No,” he said emphatically. “No, you do not want to meet them. They are terrible to look upon. They will make you feel like mouse in a lion’s paw.”
Nadja laughed. “I would like to see that!”
“Have you seen your father? He’s missing.”
“Have you not heard?” Nadja asked in return.
“Heard what?”
“Father is gathering his most loyal guardsmen. They will march to the Red Temple.”
“Why?” Gruum asked.
“To kill the bad priests. To burn them out of the palace.”
Gruum stared at her for a moment, and then sprang to his feet. He grabbed up his sword and buckled it on.
“What’s wrong?” asked Nadja curiously.
“He may have chosen the wrong side. But then again, he may not have. I plan to determine which it is.”
#
Gruum found his way to the servants’ levels. He pushed past cowering washerwomen and hunched basket-carriers. “Make way for the King’s man!” he shouted, and they melted before him.
He walked among a dozen chambers, but could not find a flooded one. He did, however, locate a series of doors that were nailed shut. He forced one open, and looked inside. There were strange designs painted in wax upon the floor. He set to work opening another door, and behind him he heard the servants fleeing. They knew they were found out. He let them go, not having time to determine which were guilty and which were merely frightened.
Behind the second door he found a figurine of carven bone in the middle of a bowl of spoilt milk and blood. A pattern was woven around the bowl in crusty liquids he could not identify. Then he found the source: a dog had been strung up and drained. He heaved a sigh; at least it was not a child.
The last door ran cold water beneath the crack at the bottom. He licked his lips and drew his saber. It had been nailed shut. He pried open the door and it came free easily. Each nail wiggled in its hole like an old man’s tooth. He surmised the nails were a formality, being removed and put back on a regular basis.
Gruum cast the door open and thrust a lamp inside. The interior was dimly lit, but he saw enough. He choked as the stink of the place hit him. A score of bodies lay heaped upon the floor. A figure representing Anduin stood at the far end of the room, presiding over the piled dead. Crudely sculpted, the Dragon idol was made primarily of black wax. Bits of dried flesh sat in the idol’s eye sockets. Gruum suspected they were real human eyeballs, now shriveled and rotten.
He noticed the ceiling next. Strangely, it was covered in thick frost. Huge icicles hung down from it, like stalactites formed of ice.
“Let me see!” Nadja said, pushing at his elbow.
Gruum startled. He had not known she was there. “One so young as yourself shouldn’t—” he began, but she would not listen.
She pressed under his arm. “Oh! They are all dead, and frozen by the look. How did they make this place so cold?”
Gruum looked up at the ceiling. It did indeed seem that something very odd was at work here. “I don’t understand it, but I recognize vile sorcery when I see it.”
“Gruum, don’t be so provincial. You don’t have to fear everything you don’t understand.”
“Provincial?” Gruum demanded of her in surprise. “There are two dozen people laying here murdered. They’ve been drained of their blood upon this very floor, girl!”
Nadja flattened her lips and heaved a sigh. “But one should not jump to conclusions.”
Gruum blew out his lips and stalked off. The girl followed him, asking questions and making bright comments. Gruum wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries, and answered her only in grunts. He left the servants’ quarter with its horrors behind and located Therian in the armory. There he had gathered a company of guardsmen, just as Nadja had said. The soldiers gave Gruum hard-eyed stares.
“Milord,” Gruum said, “I have much to report.”
“Can it not wait until after I’ve completed my day’s task?”
“My reports involve the same.”
Therian finally turned to Gruum and Nadja, who waved at her father with pink fingers. He flicked his eyes between t
he two of them. His mouth was a flat line of disapproval. “Tell me quickly.”
Gruum told the King of the priests circling their pool in the Necropolis, the unknown thing the priestesses constructed, and the mysterious frozen shrine in the laundry.
“A shrine in the laundry?” snorted Therian. He tugged black gloves upon his hands and fastened his sword belt around his waist. “That is your emergency?”
“Nadja and I found something,” Gruum began, glancing down at his side toward Nadja…but he paused. The girl had vanished. He looked around behind himself. She was nowhere in sight.
“Speak quickly, man!” Therian commanded. “What did you find?”
“A score of dead, milord,” Gruum stammered, “their drained bodies lay at the foot of the Black Dragon’s image.”
“And what of it? I lifted the ban on sorcery. Clearly, a cabal went too far, but to damn every priestess for the actions of a few seems a trifle unfair, doesn’t it? One should not come to rash conclusions.”
“Aren’t you acting rashly now, sire?” Gruum asked. His uplifted hands indicated the throng of armed men around them.
Therian lashed out and grabbed Gruum by the hair. His hand was strong and quick. Gruum’s hand strayed reflexively to his dagger, but a dozen guardsmen advanced a step around him, making his hand freeze. He rested a hand on the pommel of his dagger, but did not dare draw it.
“What do you mean by that statement, loyal Gruum?” Therian asked, still holding him by the hair.
“You march to punish the Red Order,” Gruum said, trying to keep the rage out of his voice. So tight was Therian’s grip that Gruum could not look up at his King. He could only glare at the stained flagstones of the armory as he spoke. He felt humiliated, but he did not struggle, as he knew his life hung by a thread.
Therian spoke harshly into his ear. “You said yourself the priests have dug a channel to the sea beneath Corium.”
“They tell me they seek to stop the Black Order. They say the priestesses are building Corium’s doom beneath us.”
Therian released Gruum’s hair. Everyone in the room relaxed a fraction.
“Would you have me burn them both out, then?” the King asked.
Gruum thought about it. Finally, he nodded. “Both, or none at all.”
Therian laughed. It was a strange, cold sound. Gruum had rarely heard the King’s laughter so fully expelled. “You are a fountain of wisdom and the world’s greatest fool rolled up into one, barbarian! Never do you cease to surprise me!”
Gruum smiled weakly. “Happy to please, milord.”
Therian nodded after a moment’s thought. “All right. Let us march not to one temple or another. Let us march down to the Necropolis. Let us see for ourselves what it is that occurs beneath our ancient streets. Depending on circumstances there, we’ll burn out one set of zealots—or both.”
-9-
Therian and Gruum led hundreds of guardsmen in blue livery down into the center of the Necropolis, taking a route known as the central stairway, which began with the city sewers. The guardsmen had not bothered donning their ancestral battle armor, Gruum noticed with some apprehension. No doubt they considered the robed priests and priestesses to be unworthy of fully gearing for war. Gruum hoped they had not miscalculated.
“These stones,” Therian said, walking gingerly upon the countless cairns. “They are softer underfoot than they should be.”
“They hide the dead, milord,” Gruum said.
Therian shot him a withering glance. “I’m no fool. I know the Necropolis and its secrets better than those who dwell here. But the dead flesh we trod upon—it should not be so supple.”
Gruum suppressed a shudder. Whenever he walked in this place, he tried hard not to think of the countless dead he trod upon.
“What’s that then?” asked Therian, gazing off into the distance. Behind the pair, the small army of guardsmen spread out, walking gingerly with disgust over the stones and fingering the hilts of their weapons. Their eyes were slits and they held their lanterns high.
Gruum followed the King’s gaze. He saw something out there, a pulsing glow. As he watched, a shuddering flash of light grew then faded, like the surge of the sea. The light was lavender, green and somehow black in color…if one can somehow imagine light that is black.
“I don’t know, sire,” Gruum said. “I’ve never seen the like.”
“Void magic,” Therian said thoughtfully. “The removal of what was. Does that lie in the direction of the black priestesses you met or the red priests and their waterhole?”
Gruum stared. “I’m not sure, but I would say neither, milord.”
Therian nodded in agreement. “Correct. I would say a third party is at work down here. Let us investigate.”
They set off, reluctantly followed by companies of guardsmen. Gruum walked at Therian’s side, noting the King did not send out scouts. He imagined that the guardsmen were happy about that. No one wanted to be sent out alone in this vile place.
When they drew closer to the strange glimmer, they found something odd. The stones at their feet had been disturbed. Therian studied the piles of brick-sized stones, and knelt before a spot where things were not right.
“See here? I’ve found a hole in the middle of this eruption,” Therian said.
“Yes, milord,” Gruum said. He stood well back, not wanting to approach the hole.
Therian leaned over the opening, staring down into the inky depths. “Bring me your lamp, man.”
Gruum placed it into the King’s hand and stepped back quickly.
“Quite deep,” said the King, gazing down. I can’t see the bottom at all. A number of them could have escaped here.”
“Escaped, sire?” Gruum asked. He found his mouth dusty, and tried to swallow. The action pained his throat.
“Yes, all the evidence points to an exit, not an entry. You see here, how the stones have rolled away in a pattern, all heaped up in a circular mound around this hole?”
“Looks like a gopher hole, sire,” Gruum offered.
“A what?”
“A small beast that lives in the ground of the grassy steppes. They make holes like this when they come up from the earth. The dirt is displaced up onto the surface when they tunnel. The dirt must go somewhere.”
“Oh yes, I see,” Therian said. “Just as these stones pile in a ring in this instance. They must, as you say, go somewhere to allow the tunnel to form below. But there aren’t enough stones piled to form a tunnel…and I don’t see the dead faces in the walls of the tunnel, as I would expect.”
Therian reached back over his shoulder with Gruum’s lamp. He shook it impatiently at Gruum when it was not immediately taken from his gloved hand. Gruum stepped forward and snatched it, then stepped away again.
At length, Therian stood. “The important point is one of honor. Someone has been violating the resting place of Corium’s dead. It’s an insult.”
They proceeded further among the thick columns and the shifting stones. They found more holes with tunnels beneath, dozens of them. Therian’s mood seemed to darken with each one they found.
There was a point at which Gruum realized they were surrounded by the holes and the fat pillars. The lights ahead stopped glowing, and the entire vast space of the Necropolis seemed to press inward upon them. Only Therian was immune to the sensation.
“Perhaps we scared the bugger off,” the King said, looking in every direction for signs of the glimmering light.
Gruum opened his mouth to suggest they move to a new area, when his words were cut off by a shout. Everyone turned to look. There was a guardsman, his blue cloak flapping as he struggled. He was sunk down to his waist in the stones.
“Have you not the brains to stay out of these holes, man?” Therian demanded. He strode to the man, pushing aside others. He grabbed the guardsman’s arm, who clasped hands with the King.
The guardsman’s lips moved, but no words issued. He gargled instead.
“Gruum, take his othe
r arm, we must pull him free.”
Gruum did so, and they heaved. The man finally popped loose and fell at their feet. He had no flesh beneath the waist. No legs—no meat at all below the top of his thighs. The blood rushed out of him making the black stones wet and slick. He never said an intelligible word—only odd, croaking sounds. He expired quickly.
Therian squatted, waving for a lantern again. A nervous guardsman handed him a lamp.
“Very odd,” the King said, full of curiosity. “See here, the wound is perfect—as if he were sheared in half by the finest of razors. Perhaps I misunderstood these holes. The void magic I sensed…ah, I understand. They are openings, Gruum. Don’t you see? Not tunnels at all.”
“Openings to where, milord?” Gruum asked, standing as close as he dared.
Therian shrugged. “To someplace else.”
Gruum licked his lips. He had to wonder if the dead half-man at their feet had stepped into the hole, or if the hole had yawned open beneath him. Either way, the prospects of such a certain and hideous death were not pleasant to contemplate.
“Men,” Therian said, standing and raising his voice to be heard by all. “If you do fine yourself in one of these mantraps, I would suggest you let yourself slide inside completely. The jaws seem to open only briefly, and if you struggle to get out, you will find yourself sliced in twain.”
The guardsmen murmured and shuffled uncomfortably. None of them were happy with their King’s advice.
They followed the string of open holes toward the southern end of the Necropolis. They soon came to the shrine Gruum had discovered. The red priests were still there as well, but all of them were dead now. They lie in poses of pain and horror.
Therian picked up one of the bodies. The corpse was little more than a boneless bag of skin and loose flesh. The sack-like, withered husk hung from the King’s hand like a leather cloak.
“Vosh?” Gruum asked in a whisper.
Therian nodded slowly. “Obviously.”
“How did he get out of the ocean?”