by Mike Shel
Above, the glistening blue dome was under assault from the disembodied spirit of Quintus Valec, which had lost all semblance of human form, now nothing but a malicious, swirling cloud of swimming black and gray. Within their defensive shell, it sounded as though a windstorm raged outside, battering at their shelter with hateful purpose.
“What is this horror?” yelled Gnaeus, whose words Auric could barely make out through the horrible din.
“The spirit spends itself—” began Auric, but he felt the air forced from his lungs, as though punched in the gut by an angry fist.
“It is forbidden!” cried a deep, rancorous voice from above. “None shall pass the threshold of this unholy ruin!”
Auric felt a sickening tingling sensation dance over his flesh and was unable to draw breath. He was being smothered. He fought the natural panic, looking about himself as he crouched on the ground, witnessing Belech, Lumari and Gnaeus struggling in the same way. But Sira, by some colossal effort, was upright, on her knees, holding up her laurel sprig and calling out something into the baleful darkness that beat with detestable energy at their supernatural shelter. Auric was close to collapsing entirely, certain that he would suffocate here before even entering the Djao ruin, their mission incomplete, Agnes and the rest in the Citadel doomed.
But at last, Sira’s voice could be heard above the cacophonous assault. “By Belu’s sweet will, I banish thee, hateful phantom, to oblivion! Get thee GONE!”
The blue dome and the abhorrent force that assailed it vanished in the same sudden instant, and a rumble like a peal of thunder rode on the air. Auric’s ears popped painfully. He took a huge gulp of air into his lungs and lay on his back, breathing heavily with the rest of them.
“By Vanic’s ball sack…what the f-fuck was that?” sputtered Gnaeus, lying on the floor.
“Asomatous…annihilation,” answered Sira between her own labored breaths. “The spirit of Quintus Valec…expended its very essence attempting to…thwart us.”
“Meaning?” Gnaeus queried.
“It obliterated itself utterly, son,” Auric responded for the priest. “Quintus Valec no longer exists, on this plane or any other.”
“The kind of hate something like that would require…” said Sira, her quivering voice trailing off, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Or fear,” said Auric soberly. “Never underestimate the power of fear to motivate, even acts that bring about self-annihilation.”
“Even after death, it seems,” added Belech, covering his face with his hands so that Auric couldn’t read the emotion on it.
28
Cage God
All were deeply shaken by their encounter with the vengeful spirit of Quintus Valec. Auric thought it best to allow for time to recover, so they rested outside the temple entrance in contemplative silence. Lumari had ignited three more of her glow-rods and distributed them as before, then occupied herself with close examination of the iron disk’s surface, her alchemical light in one hand and a jeweler’s loop in the other. Belech sat a short distance away with Sira, who was greatly drained by the act of repelling the phantom and now deep in meditation, regaining her strength.
“Sir Auric,” said Lumari from her perch at the entrance, “please come look at this.”
Auric stood and walked over to the alchemist with an easy gait that contradicted his inner turmoil. The temple’s entrance was striking in its similarity to the last Djao ruin he had so narrowly escaped. He dreaded other parallels that would resurrect old ghosts, figurative or otherwise. As he drew near, his nostrils flared at the stench emanating from within the temple: a sickly-sweet, rotting odor that he had never—mercifully—encountered before. He suppressed the gorge rising in his throat. “What is it, Lumari?”
“As Gower Morz said, the visible portion of the disk here is covered primarily with Higher Djao pictograms, telling us that this is very likely a temple. And I’ve located three of the depressions in the metal he spoke of…here, here, and here…the points he had to press in some sequence to open the barrier. But if you look here—”
She pointed and began handing the jeweler’s loop to Auric. As she turned, he spied a green cream painted beneath her nostrils.
“Ah!” she said, reaching into one of her innumerable pockets and pulling out a small jar. “Dab a bit of this under your nostrils. It has an overwhelming smell of mint that’s somewhat unpleasant, but it’s far preferable to the stink this place exhales.”
Auric dabbed a finger into the proffered pot and smeared it under his nose, which twitched disagreeably as he adjusted to the pungent scent. Lumari took a moment to re-locate what she wanted Auric to see, at last spying it and marking the point with a finger. Auric squinted his left eye and looked through the lens with his right. He saw some Lesser Djao script etched into the disk’s surface.
“It looks like…djaal’aaht…yes. I’d say it means ‘hold close,’ or something like that. What’s your point?”
“I would translate it as ‘imprison,’ myself. Perhaps ‘cage,’ as a verb perhaps, though your interpretation is equally valid.”
“Yes, ‘imprison’ is reasonable. Again, why is this important?”
The alchemist pointed to the disk’s edge, directing him to use her lens again. He looked through the glass loop, found a single word repeated over and over along the disk’s lip, written in Lesser Djao, alternating with untranslatable Higher Djao glyphs.
“Da, da, da, da, da…” he said aloud.
“God, god, god, god, god…” Lumari translated.
Auric stepped back from the iron disk, let out a long exhalation. By this time, Gnaeus and Belech had joined them. Lumari offered her jar of minty cream to assuage the temple’s acrimonious stench to the newcomers.
“That’s a bit odd, I admit,” Auric finally said. “Have you found any other Lesser Djao etched in the iron?”
“That’s just it,” answered the alchemist. “None.”
“None?”
“We can’t translate the Higher Djao, what that means,” offered Gnaeus, suddenly playing the scholar. “‘Hold god close,’ would be one way to interpret it, if we take Sir Auric’s translation to heart. Or ‘cage the god, imprison the god,’ if Lumari is more on target.”
“Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe ‘god of the cage’ is more on target,” Lumari suggested, stroking her chin.
“How does this affect our direction?” asked Belech.
“It’s just something for us to keep in mind, Belech,” Gnaeus answered with a degree of condescension. “When dealing with old ruins, the more information one has, the better.”
“But too much data can also overwhelm,” countered Lumari. “Of course, I’ve only seen Djao script on recovered relics and in books from the Citadel libraries. This is the first occasion I’ve witnessed such writing in its original setting. Sir Auric, you’re much more experienced with this sort of thing. What’s your opinion?”
The three of them turned to Auric, who scratched his head as though it would aid his thinking. He pondered it a moment longer, then shook his head. “Your translations do credit to your Citadel training, both of you. Each possibility you suggest is a valid guess. There’s normally more of a mixture of Djao dialects on a temple entrance, though. Say, two-thirds to three-quarters Higher Djao, the remainder a mixture of Lesser and Middle. I don’t see a scrap of Middle Djao on it at all.”
“Perhaps the Middle Djao is hidden on the section of the disk retracted into the wall,” Lumari offered.
“Could be,” Auric answered, unconvinced.
“We wouldn’t be able to read it anyway,” muttered Gnaeus, “without Del to translate.” Auric nodded, feeling the sorcerer’s absence.
Sira had joined them at the entrance, looking a bit like she had just woken from a deep sleep. Handing over her jar of minty cream, Lumari shared with her what they had discovered on the dis
k, but Sira had nothing to add to their discussion, nodding as she took in the information. “Auric,” she said finally, “if the rest of you are sufficiently recovered, I’m also ready for us to enter the temple, though first I would like to call down a special blessing on our endeavor.”
“Of course, Sira,” said Auric, a hand on her shoulder.
The priest smiled and nodded again, then bowed her head and held her hands over them all, whispering some secret prayer, her eyes closed tight. Auric felt a slow, comforting warmth descend on him, like a familiar blanket. Some of his anxiety melted away, and he found himself smiling along with his companions, who clapped one another on the back in a sudden burst of comradery. Belech even gave him a great bear hug and whispered in his ear.
“You realize that Sira is our most precious asset, Auric, don’t you? We were blessed the day she tried to make a friend of that critter in the woods.”
The antechamber beyond the iron disk reminded Auric of the one he had entered on his last ill-fated expedition, save that the room was larger, its shape irregular, and the hundreds of candles had melted into one another completely so that the stair-step shelves in the chamber were covered with a layer of poorly mixed wax of clashing colors. Another iron door on the opposite wall, this one rectangular, was slightly ajar, and a metal bar lay before it on the floor, fixed there in a pool of dried wax. Again, his mind flashed back to the nightmare.
“The bar!” cried the voice of Lenda from behind him. “Put the bar in place!”
Sira’s small hand on his bare forearm brought him back to the present. “Sir Auric,” she said in a soft tone, a rare occasion when she used his appellation. “I suggest that I carry the satchel with the Golden Egg. It’s probably best that you’re unencumbered should we encounter any hostiles today.”
For the first time, Auric felt the cold emanating from the Egg at the small of his back, the satchel hanging low. He realized he would be glad to be free of the thing, though he had hardly noticed its presence before that moment.
“It’s not too heavy for you?” he asked, immediately regretting the stupid question.
“I am quite capable, Auric,” she answered with her lopsided smile, playing the exasperated daughter.
“Yeah, papa,” needled Gnaeus, picking up on the dynamic. “Let sis carry the pack for a while. Let us all get a turn.”
Auric handed the satchel over to Sira, who set down her buckler and strapped the bag onto her back. Belech pointed to the rectangular door with Busy Marlu, a question on his face. “Certainly, friend Belech,” said Auric in answer. “Open the door.”
Belech had to yank hard to open it, peeling away a thick layer of candlewax caked on the floor around the door’s sweep. The corridor beyond, illuminated by Lumari’s glow-rods, was comprised of the same irregular stones that formed the antechamber, though rather than a straight shot, the hall snaked from side to side, finally making an abrupt turn to the left some sixty feet on. The width varied from five to ten feet, without apparent purpose. Lumari retrieved the map Gower Morz had drawn for them on Kenes and studied it for a moment, finally looking back up at the swerving corridor.
“Gower’s map shows a straight hall, about a hundred feet long. This is not that hall.”
Gnaeus looked over her shoulder. “Perhaps he drew it straight rather than attempt to recall insignificant twists and turns,” offered the blond swordsman.
“Have you ever met a map maker, Gnaeus?” asked Lumari, incredulous. “Accuracy is sovereign. If Gower Morz drew the corridor straight, then it was straight when he stood in it.”
“So you’re saying it changed?”
“The quake, perhaps?” suggested Belech.
“That seems very unlikely,” said Auric, puzzled. “Tremors might collapse ceilings, make walls pitch in, upend flagstones. This corridor looks as though it was constructed by a work gang of drunkards.”
“What of the heads?” asked Lumari.
Auric’s pulse quickened at the alchemist’s mention of heads. “What do you mean?”
“The old man said that every seven feet or so demonic stone heads poked out of the walls. I see none.”
It was true. There appeared to be none, though there were occasional misshapen protuberances that bore no resemblance to heads, demonic or otherwise.
“And why is it so goddamned hot?” Gnaeus cursed, pulling at the shirt beneath his etched breastplate. “Is there a volcano anywhere near here?”
The swordsman was right. It was uncomfortably humid in the hall and condensation coated the walls. “No volcano,” said Auric absently, staring down the weird, undulating hall.
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t volcanic activity somewhere nearby,” Lumari interjected. “How about hot springs or geysers?”
“Further east,” said Sira. “Far east of these hills we’re in now, I think.”
“Yes,” Auric confirmed.
Lumari started dusting the condensation on the walls with a gray powder, scraped the subsequent mushy substance into a fat tube, added another liquid, and shook it vigorously after capping it. She then inspected the cloudy mixture in the vial through her jeweler’s loop.
“Nothing terribly unusual about the condensation,” she concluded, placing the sealed vial in a pocket. “A bit saliferous, but not poisonous, nor corrosive. Shouldn’t be a problem unless we have to run across stones slick with it.”
“Saliferous?” sneered Gnaeus. “Vanic shit, Lumari, we’re not all alchemists here.”
“Salty,” said Auric, who ran his bare hands on the nearby wall, felt the wetness between his fingers, smelled it, and felt foolish, remembering the minty paste beneath his nostrils. “After about seventy feet we should come to the gate where Gower Morz was blinded. Let’s proceed.”
After only thirty feet Auric stopped, overcome with an awareness of being watched, watched by something malevolent. He turned to look at the wall beside him and saw what looked like part of a face sculpted of stone—the corner of a forehead, a stubby horn, a triangular eye with an iris like a cat’s—protruding from the wall as though it was trying to push its way through from the other side.
“Lumari,” he said, waving for the alchemist to join him.
“Strange,” she said when she saw what Auric was looking at.
“Not as strange as the bricks around it. It almost looks like they expanded about the sculpture, or the stone melted and solidified again, while the sculpture remained as it was.”
“Here’s another,” said Gnaeus, pointing at a pig’s snout poking from between a trio of bricks bulging outward.
Belech walked back ten feet and found two more: a fanged mouth with a forked tongue dangling from it, and a pair of eyes peeking out between two bricks. “It looks like the demon heads are here,” said the old soldier, touching the end of the forked tongue with the head of his mace. “They’re just bashful.”
“This is not as Gower Morz described it, either,” said Auric, looking more closely at Gnaeus’s pig snout. “And these are places he saw before he lost his sight. Something very bizarre has happened here. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Djaal’aaht,” said Sira, recalling the Lesser Djao etchings at the temple’s entry. “‘Imprison…’ It seems as though these demon heads have become imprisoned in the very building blocks of this place, doesn’t it?”
“Certainly ‘held close,’” said Gnaeus, looking at another of the partially hidden sculptures farther down the way. The swordsman poked his head around the corner of the hall as it turned to the left, holding a glow-rod before him.”
“Balls of the war god!” he exclaimed. “You have to see this!”
Long experience made Auric refrain from running. How many agents had sustained stupid injuries or worse over the years moving too impulsively at just such a tantalizing clarion call? His three comrades behind him matched his unhurried pac
e as Gnaeus disappeared around the corner.
“Have a care, lad!” Auric shouted.
When Auric reached the turn in the hall, he found Gnaeus crouched on the balls of his feet. The stones of the corridor appeared as though they had somehow constricted, closing at one end like a sphincter and partially relaxing again. At the point where the bricks seemed to have pinched together were the twisted remains of a gate, presumably the one where Gower Morz had been blinded. The floor angled upward, the ceiling angled down, the walls pinched in so that the space forward was roughly four feet to a side, half of its original dimensions. The gate that once fit that passage was bowed outward, wedged into place by the encroaching stones.
“Fucking Yellow Hells,” gasped Gnaeus. “Do you see this insanity?”
“Look out, Gnaeus!” called Lumari. “The mucus on that gate is what blinded Gower Morz!”
“Well, it’s dry as a bone now,” said the swordsman, tapping his rapier’s blade on the contorted metal so that it chimed like a bell. Particles flaked off the warped bars, drifting to the ground like lazy snowfall.
“Don’t touch it!” Lumari yelled. “That dried residue may still be acidic!” She ran up to the crouching swordsman, pulling on a pair of elaborate goggles held to her head by a leather strap. Donning protective gloves, she gathered some of the dried flakes Gnaeus had casually knocked off the iron bars, and began her testing of the substance.
“Is this the way you normally conduct yourself in a ruin?” the alchemist barked as she went about the task. “How is it you’re not dead yet? Seven or eight times over?”
“Well?” asked Gnaeus, grinning.
After shaking the flakes in a liquid solution and looking at them through her lens, she poured the vial’s contents out onto the stony floor. “Inert,” she said, still angry.