Transitum in Lacum
Passage into the Pit. The words echoed ominously through her mind, stunning her like a lightning bolt. She’d seen the word “Lacum” before. It flashed through her memory clear and vivid, in a place she’d never wished to visit again; one deep in darkness where the words were cast in stone, splayed across a threshold that opened upon a staircase leading down, down, down into endless darkness. The threshold that stood in the abandoned temple, beyond the old woman’s haunt; the one who’d given her the black candle with flame burning blue.
Realization rang out loud and true. She knew her fate was tied to that awful place, and that she must seek it out and pass through into the darkness beyond; though she could hardly stomach the idea. It overwhelmed her with a physical terror, a kind that demanded procrastination for the sake of sanity. So she allowed herself to be distracted, drawn to the back of the room where a small, slender door hid in the corner. Welcoming the excuse to busy her hands and mind, she pulled it open with a weak, dry crack. Beyond was a landing flanked on each side by storage rooms. By the light of the blue candle, she observed shelves filled with all manner of herbs, vials and curiosities. But straight across the landing, to her dismay, a narrow stairwell led down into darkness.
Her search for deferment had backfired. For her senses told her that this was the way, and that it wouldn’t do to hesitate. If she did, she may lose her nerve altogether; and it would make the plunge into darkness even more difficult. Somehow, she knew she had everything she needed. She must accept. She must find courage and set out now. Forcing one foot in front of the other and the icy lump back down her throat, she moved on, as if in a trance; her heart forging on while her flesh recoiled in horror. Her mind had still not accepted this journey, nor the rest of her body. Every forward movement seemed to burn the flesh from her bones, sending her inner man on it’s own disjointed pilgrimage into realms beyond.
Down, down, down. Her soul seemed removed from her body, enveloped by the cold all around, detached from the warmth of her own blood. Boot heels hit dry, wooden steps until finding flat stone. Looking around, she found herself in a circular chamber; one with a high, vaulted ceiling that converged in the center. At the middle of the room lay a stone pool, simple and filled with a motionless, otherworldly black liquid. It wouldn’t do to hesitate. Reaching down, she dipped her finger into the thick, cool blackness. And before she could fight it, the sensation took her entire body as she was pulled into the black.
~
Her mind slipped. She could hardly tell how much time had passed, if any. When she awoke in a twin pool, in a twin circular room, she thought she’d merely reemerged from the same pool. But as the strange liquid dripped from her eyes in thick, oozing lines, she beheld an arched doorway that opened onto a dark courtyard beyond - quite different from the room she’d been in before.
She climbed out of the pool, feeling alarmed and violated by the strange spell, and attempted to regain her composure. Strangely, her hair and clothing dried within a moment, the black liquid disappearing without any enduring trace; though a strange prickling sensation remained on her skin. Likewise, as the black candle emerged from the pool, still in her hand, it reignited with a popping hiss. She took comfort in it’s presence, knowing it would burn forever, hiding her from enemies.
As she crossed under the arched threshold that led beyond, she recognized the courtyard there. It was the dark place where the old woman dwelled, the one who’d gifted her with the candle. But there was no one about. The dark, filthy windows showed no sign of life within - no light - while the courtyard showed the same. It felt like a tomb, untouched and silent. If it weren’t for the black candle sitting solidly in her grasp, she’d have thought the old woman had been of her own imagining.
She passed through the courtyard like a ghost, hardly breathing, leaving no trace of body or mind. Spotting the corridor that led back to the abandoned temple, she made tracks towards it, feeling colder and more disjointed the further she went. Every part of her felt frozen. But she pushed onward, ignoring the lump in her throat, letting her will carry her on while the rest lagged behind, begging for sanctuary. The passage was long and dark, stone surrounding her on every side. How much earth entombed her all around, she didn’t wish to know. She moved on, kept cold company by her boot heels’ cracks echoing on stone as the candle cast it’s eerie blue tint. Deja-vu waxed strong in her senses the further she went.
It seemed that a journey was always shorter when she knew where it ended, especially when the destination was dreaded. So, much sooner than she wished, she found herself in the echoing temple chamber with shadowy statues surrounding her, their forms threatening in the near dark. She crept forward, finding herself before a large stone altar. It cut an ominous form in the near dark. It’s top seemed sullied, as if marked by a sheen of grease from the offerings made upon it. Holding her candle high, she noticed words engraved in it’s side.
CARNE MORTALI
Mortal Flesh. The words swirled through her mind in an acrid wave. Her journey began to make sickening, horrific sense. Realization called to her senses like a song sung just out of view, though she cringed and recoiled at it’s scent, shying away. But it wouldn’t be opposed, and continued to ring through the space around her. Her heart had made it’s demands, and she knew there was only one path to take.
With her whole body trembling, she approached the great threshold emblazoned with the world “LACVM.” The Pit. It was tall and made of thick, ancient stone. Her bottom lip quivered as warm tears poured down. She could find the strength to see it as a door, only a door that she must walk through; she must. She had no choice. Otherwise, she’d never find the courage to walk through. She must be brave. And so, trembling, she took the first step down. And then another. And then another. Each small sound echoed back to her between the thick stone walls in a dry, twanging echo; down the passage that stretched beyond sight, marked out by ancient, uneven steps. Terror ground a deep, icy pit in her stomach. And with each step, loneliness and isolation weighed heavier on her heart. It seemed the rest of the world was a galaxy away, that there was no one else but her; except for the one she sought, shining out before her like a bright, fixed star.
She traveled for ages, steps stretching down before her into a black oblivion. Their bottom appeared all too soon - a frightening, desolate, rectangular void wherein the steps disappeared into nothingness. It felt like the mouth of a dry, forgotten grave; opening up into death itself. The air was thick down here, stagnant and unmoving, choking her. She was trembling violently now, each breath stuttering as it moved through her lips, shaking her shoulders with it’s release. She stood at the edge of the void for a moment or two, overcome with fear. She’d no idea what lay beyond in the shadows - a monster’s lair? The Valak itself? Doubt ran rampant through her mind. Had she taken the right path? Or was she mistaken? Had she put herself in danger for nothing? She swam in confusion and fear, limbs flailing in their murky waters until every part felt exhausted.
Standing here, frozen on the edge of the darkness, would not do. With tense muscles, she pressed the black candle out into the darkness beyond. And with quivering faculties, she observed what lay within - a large cylindrical pit. There were no doors, openings, nor passages of any kind in it’s structure; just hard stone walls reaching up and down into the black.
Options failed her. There only seemed to be one - one that made her heart leap into her throat and her jaw to lock with terror. Looking down, nothing but dingy, thick blackness met her eyes as it faded into clouded emptiness. The sight sent a sickening wave through her belly, one so powerful she gagged. But she knew it was the only way. As her desperate, gasping breaths blared in her ears, she focussed her thoughts on Blackall. And a warmth came back into her heart.
I would do anything for you, she declared in her heart, reaching out through the dark. And so she leapt, abandoning herself to the unknown.
CHAPTER 39
Into the Flames
In
the words of a thousand volumes, in the span of a thousand years, she could never have fully explained what happened then. Darkness took her. And when she could scream no longer, she was still falling; vertigo and panic wrenching her body until she could do nothing but surrender to the chaos and pain. She couldn’t bear it, but she had to. She couldn’t feel it any longer, but there was no choice. She truly entered the darkness then - within and without - lost to confusion and physical torment that sent her past a threshold of the soul. She drifted passively then, her heart expecting death, wishing for it, waiting for the sickening thud that would separate her from this painful life forever. But it never came. She merely drifted, on and on, losing and recalling herself in a horrific dance into immersive black.
A part of her perished then, while another seemed to fully reveal itself. It felt as if her body had expired, every breath choked off and silenced, yet her mind solidified into a substance so sound, it seemed all doubt had left her. She could still sense fear. But it did not hamper her so powerfully as it always had. She observed it’s power from a safe harbor, a place beyond it’s hold, like the spectator of a drama acted out by strangers, standing safely in the balcony.
She knew herself then - felt and accepted every part. Neither fear of punishment, reprisal, nor the limitation of mortal flesh bound her feelings. She basked in an unearthly freedom, a relief from oppressions she’d always felt but had never realized the source of. Energies flowed through her in unencumbered waves, the power within that’d always been stifled by the exacting cruelties of other beings was finally let free.
The ringing came at first, the kind she’d heard in Valefar’s presence and at Gurza Manor. But she sailed through it like a meteor shooting full speed through the sky, along with the threshold it guarded; beyond the sensation of physical death and into a place that seemed to break the fabric of her very consciousness. She felt thinned, broken down into her simplest parts. She could feel her mind fraying round the edges and breaking at the folds, slowly losing it’s substance in a manner that was likely inevitable when mortals visited such realms. She sensed, somewhere in her heart, that if she stayed here too long she would completely unravel; and that at such a point, nothing could put her back together again. So she held tightly to her thoughts, hoping to stave off such a fate; all the while fearing that any mental gymnastics would only quicken the wear on her consciousness.
She floated in a space between dreaming and wakefulness, in a womb of unconsciousness just aware enough to know that it is. When she realized her limbs again, her hands were grasping something soft and sticky, like the underside of a leaf touched by curious fingertips. She felt the sensation in her dream for some time before opening her eyes. And when she did, a strange, greenish-brown object lay just before her hazy vision. She was grasping onto it with loose, sleepy limbs. She widened her eyes then, coming fully awake, and saw that the object was a great, tall vine that reached straight up into a black firmament. There were several about just as tall. With dizzy faculties, she realized her face was pointed towards the dark ground, rather than the blackened sky; and her grip on the great vine held her steady as she floated lazily next to it. Oh god, she was floating. Her feet pointed weightlessly toward a blackened sky - her muddy, tapered boots those of a flying witch barreling through clouds. Strangely, though she was upside down, her dress did not fall about her face, but floated up around her ankles.
Her heart raced as she realized she was at least a hundred feet above the ground, which looked like little more than a hazy photograph from this height. Her breath came in panicked gasps as she yanked herself downwards in a mad dash, descending little by little as her desperate, clawing limbs pulled for safety; hoping to make it down before anything horrible happened. As panic gripped her heart, her body floated dreamily above like a ship bouncing over sluggish waves.
Her gasps and grunts echoed out into darkened space as she clawed down. A miserable age passed and her head throbbed with the disorientation of being so long upside down. But after an exhausting journey, she found herself staring straight down at muddy ground. As she floated there, several meters from the surface, something shifted in the air. There was a ringing in her ears as her center of gravity adjusted. She was flipped over and dropped to the ground with a painful thud. She landed in a pit where the vines’ great spines emerged from thick mud. It made for a soft landing, although she plummeted with the same force of gravity familiar to Earth, smashing sharply into the muck.
Her boots were sopped with mud past her ankles. Her dress and cape were covered. But she paid them little mind, standing on shaky feet to survey the world around her. To her dismay, she saw nothing but encroaching darkness - dark land, dark horizons and dark skies above; all lit by a dim, grayish glow that blanketed the landscape in strange pockets. She climbed her way out of the deep, muddy pit to find something like desolate crop land stretching out before her in a horrific expanse. There were no crops planted, only tended soil that seemed to have been poorly irrigated, with pools of water laying stagnant in the cracks.
She wandered aimlessly, without sign or sense to guide her. There was no way to navigate such a place, no signs of life. But she’d little option other than to continue on, in hopes that something would present itself.
Dark, desolate hills surrounded. The ground was rolling and strange. One moment she seemed to be on an old, abandoned crop road, the next she found herself on cobbled lanes that led nowhere and ended in jagged diagonal lines. Occasionally, she passed dilapidated outbuildings that seemed to lean against the wind - black, dry, empty figures spotting desolate fields. But they promised little sanctuary or meaning. At one point, dozens of snakes slithered by in a tight group, terrifying her as they skimmed over her booted feet. They passed without incident, as if late for something.
A fretful sense of disquiet fell over her then, and she began to understand what it was about this place that could drive men mad and make them lose sense of themselves. This realm was strange, disjointed. Senseless. Incoherent. There was nothing to attach oneself to, to fit oneself into. She felt lost and disconnected from herself, a stranger in a land that could not create one such as her, and therefore could not understand her. There was no place for her mind, no space for her thoughts or emotions. It felt like a vacuum, both aggressive and inhospitable. There was no understanding of her kind here. This was a land of another kind. So she closed a door in her mind, trudging on through gray fields and dark, rolling hills as a sickly sky rolled overhead.
Then, as if waking from a startling dream, she looked up and found herself at the edge of a mangled wood. The trees crept upwards in black, jagged lines - an alarming prospect in the near dark. But the trail stretched out in a white line, promising direction to cut through her listlessness; so she followed, and gratefully. Her feet fell soundlessly on the track, the strange air thereabouts absorbing sound as she trudged along, feeling half asleep. After a time, she came upon a clearing. Trees stood in sparse, mangled bunches around the edges. And before her, in bright contrast to the dark landscape, stood an imposing construction. A gray stone building spiked into the sky in gory, intestinal detail; it’s intricacy reminiscent of a temple or sacred building. It reminded her of an ancient Roman or Byzantine temple in it’s grandiosity, but with a style all it’s own - one grotesque, horrifying and lacking in the transcendent beauty of earthly temples. It felt, instead, like an opulent mallet or a emblazoned latrine; upon which she could smell the leavings of past offerings and the grease of their fires.
Movement nearby startled her, and on instinct, she hid behind the blackened trees. As she did, a creature appeared from beyond the tree line. A shock rent her heart, piercing her guts as she beheld it. For the creature’s skin was gray and wrinkled, it’s limbs elongated and monstrous. It had sharp teeth that protruded from a pink mouth and blank white eyes sunken into wrinkled sockets. It looked just like Uncle Morton and Mrs. Ackworth by the light of the black candle. It was a Draugr vampire, but it wore a long, black robe with
weaving at the sleeves. It’s horrific, clawed fingers dangled down beneath the fine fabric as it approached the great building. Others approached as well. A great congregation was swelling, their monstrous gaits moving toward the steps of the temple. And as she beheld it, a nauseous burning sensation ran through her chest; the desire to throw up both physically and morally overwhelmed her.
When the crowd had amassed at the base of the temple, a great figure strode out before them, a stately and assuming Draugr vampire. He stood at the top of the temple steps, clothed in supple finery, a priestly robe of white, red and gold intricate design topped with a Dagon hat that sloped up to a point, which was covered in gold beads and small, dangling objects that she couldn’t make out from the distance. The creature raised his loping arms out to his sides - a gesture of embrace or domination, she couldn’t tell - and a low, guttural growl began to build up amidst the horde. They hissed and spat, exciting themselves as tension built up among the congregation. Then the great official opened his jaw, his thin, sharp teeth protruding, and called out in a loud voice.
“I am the Priest of the Left Hand,” he cried in a monstrous growl as the crowd hissed and spat like wild animals, bearing their teeth as their moaning grew bestial, rising up in an emotive wave. “I am the Father of the Right Hand, he who sits at the foot of the Eternal and has beheld the scrolls of the Blood of Time and Knowledge. I am the Prophet of the Two Sons, the Twin Paths, come to bear the revelation to the blasphemous children of the Unbelievers. The skies above bow before me and the Power of the Name. The word speaks Power into Life. The Flesh is the Life, the Blood of the Truth. The Knowledge of the blasphemers is the revelation. The revelation is the Knowledge of the Name. The Name is the Power of the Twin Paths. Breathe the new revelation. The revelation is the Breath. Repent! Eat of the sacrifice, eat of the blasphemers! Eat of the Knowledge of the revelation and be saved!”
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