by Mike Shel
“Does it really matter?” he replied.
“It does,” responded Sira firmly, eyes puffy and red from weeping. “I don’t doubt it’s an entity of much power, but it is no god. What god would toy with us like…like a wicked child?”
“Some would say all gods do as much,” said Lumari, without emotion.
“We don’t need your irreligious prattle now,” Belech growled with a hostility unlike the man.
Lumari looked at him blankly, perhaps weighing a response, but instead let out a long, disheartened sigh. Belech, clearly regretting his venom, put a hand on the alchemist’s shoulder and turned his head to Auric, who sat near the beckoning hole.
“So, what do we do?”
“We do what it asked us to do,” Auric answered.
“Are you fucking insane?” shouted Gnaeus.
“What other options do we have, lad?” said Auric in a stern voice, not bothering to turn and face the swordsman. “We can’t go back the way we came—that path is closed to us. It implies that we can truly face it. Well, that’s the way we’ll determine just how divine this being is. When we stand face to face, perhaps then we’ll know.”
“Maybe it’s a trap,” countered Lumari.
“We’re already trapped, lass,” Belech answered.
“So your plan,” snarled Gnaeus, pacing now, “is to have us march right into the beast’s den? Crawl down that fucking hole? Perhaps we ought to step right into its belly, so that it needn’t exert itself with chewing and swallowing? By the Six Floating Virgins, I’ll not serve myself up like a bloody canapé!”
“Sir Auric, you don’t mean to surrender to the beast—whatever it is—do you?” asked Sira, almost pleading.
“No,” he answered. “Of course not.”
“Then what?” Gnaeus barked.
“Gnaeus, earlier you recalled our run-in with the manticores, and their offer to spare us in exchange for an easy meal. I think that’s exactly what happened to the first expedition. They removed the gem from the idol, which somehow unleashed the being. It trapped them in this chamber and refused to let them go unless they sacrificed one of their number to it. Bessemer or Valec cut Ariellum Brisk’s throat, and the creature released them.”
“What about Cosus of Mourcort?” queried Lumari. “Couldn’t she have done the deed?”
“I don’t think so,” Auric responded. “Judging by her corpse, I think she was horrified by what the priests had done to Ariellum. When they were released from the chamber, she must have threatened to expose the two of them for their blasphemy, and the cowardly murder. One of them knifed her in the back of the neck as she fled, to keep their secret.”
“That fits what we saw when we examined the two bodies,” Belech agreed. “And it makes more sense of Wallach’s guilt, and the two priests’ commitment to keeping the Syraeic League out of this place.”
“Yes,” said Auric. “So, they come to Gower Morz and Wallach wants to leave him, but for some reason that’s a bridge too far for Quintus Valec. Since Morz didn’t witness their appalling crime, he’s the first to be fed their lies about what happened, and they take him with them.”
“What of it?” retorted Gnaeus, his pacing arrested for the moment. “Don’t tell me you want to strike a bargain with the beast like those bastards did?”
“Far from it, lad,” said Auric. “I want to kill it.”
“And if it truly is a god?” asked Belech.
“Then before it destroys me, I want to spit in its goddamned face.”
32
Descent
Sira was as shaken as the rest of them, but she steeled herself enough to call the blessings of Belu down on the lot of them. Auric admired the young priest’s resilient spirit, her determination not to surrender in the face of this overwhelming evil. The rest did what they could to prepare. Lumari concocted a few formulae with compounds Auric couldn’t name, sorted them into separate vials, and readied them in the slots of her bandolier. He wondered wryly if any of those formulae included dung water from a tanner’s bating vat. Meanwhile, Gnaeus sharpened his rapier and worried over the damage he had done to the weapon’s artfully decorated guard banging it on the unnatural walls of the chamber. At last, he cast an incantation on the blade: it glowed with pale blue radiance. Belech alone seemed to do nothing, holding Busy Marlu as he stood before the ominous hole in the floor, hands folded over one another as though he stood before the grave of a loved one.
Perhaps it is a grave of sorts, freshly dug and ready to be filled, Auric thought, feeling shame as he did.
Whatever was at the end of that opening in the flagstones, Auric knew he must lead his four companions. He held each in great affection after the trials they had been through together. They deserved courage. They deserved strength. He gathered up his uncertainty and fear and pushed it down as deep as he could manage.
If any good gods listen, or care, he prayed silently, left hand tight on Szaa’da’shaela’s pommel, let me not fail these brave people, nor fail Agnes, and the others counting on our success, in Boudun and above.
As you have failed others in the past? said the voice of Lenda in his head.
Auric grimaced at the intrusion. Was it the Aching God, toying with him? He was sure of it. Get out of my mind, unholy creature! he retorted in anger. This is not your province yet!
Get out of your mind, chuckled Lenda. Where is it you think you stand now, little man?
Auric was determined to go first. The hole descended only a few feet before turning at a forty-five-degree angle. The tunnel was about three and a half feet in diameter, its sweaty walls fleshy and warm, bony, rib-like rings every few feet supporting them. He couldn’t help but feel he was traversing an enormous esophagus. An unspeakable odor hinted its foul presence at his nostrils, attempting to penetrate the fresh application of Lumari’s minty salve. Szaa’da’shaela was sheathed in its scabbard so that he had both hands to negotiate his descent, but he felt the weapon pulsate at his side, a strangely reassuring sensation.
After what seemed an endless descent, he reached another chamber. It was cathedral-like, roughly oval, nearly thirty feet wide and at least a hundred long. The curving walls, covered with unhealthy bumps and tumors, looked like the rough hide of a pestilent elephant, the color of rotting flesh. Tufts of spiky vegetation sprang from creases and folds. Both the walls and the arched ceiling, forty feet overhead, were supported by a series of bony buttresses. The tunnel emptied at one end of the cavernous space, which otherwise seemed almost barren. A dull illumination lit the chamber, though Auric could find no source for it. Several irregularly-shaped pools of the black tar like that in the idol’s forehead were scattered along the floor near the arching walls.
Belech emerged from the tunnel and, stepping free of it, began wiping the damp remains collected from the tunnel walls from his clothing and armor, disgusted. Sira soon followed him, with Lumari close behind her. After a few minutes, Gnaeus crawled from the tunnel, looking about the long chamber warily, his blue-glowing rapier already drawn.
All my children have arrived, then, said a warm woman’s voice.
“You think that’s funny, fucking cunt?” screamed Gnaeus.
Everyone turned to him, looks of dismay on their faces.
“That was the voice of my mother,” he said, as though in apology. “It has no goddamned right to do that.”
“None at all, lad,” said Belech with sympathy. “It used my mother’s voice earlier as well, dead these twenty years.”
“And my sister,” said Lumari. “Takes them from our minds, I imagine, to rattle us. It’s a hateful creature.”
Your minds, oh! said the grandmotherly voice again. They are rich with memory. But I merely borrow from them, so that I might communicate with you. It is the simplest way.
“You told us you would show your face,” said Auric in an even tone. “Was this a lie, th
en?”
You are to present yourselves to me, mortal, it said in the voice of his dead wife, Marta. Oh, I will show myself to each of you when the time comes. One of you I will even spare. My disciple. The one who will go forth to spread my gospel, so that more will come to this place.
“You would have us open your temple again for worship?” Sira shouted with contempt. “The world has moved on, whatever you call yourself! We are not the Djao, who would bow at your bloody altar!”
Deafening laughter erupted, sending all of them to their knees.
Little priest, this was never my temple!
Auric stood with difficulty, recovering from the Aching God’s odious mirth. But if this was not its temple…
“Djaal’aaht,” whispered Auric, repeating the word found at the entrance to these ruins.
Djaal’aaht, crooned the Aching God.
Cage.
It all started to make sense to him. The first expedition, thirty-three years ago, awoke this infernal prisoner, and managed to escape by making their terrible bargain. They stole a piece of the fell god, the Besh relic, and hid the truth from everyone. But they had also reneged on their promise to bring the god “more.” When that hapless novice at the Citadel cut himself on the fragment of the Aching God—the relic—it was like another blood sacrifice. Thus, the cage—
Was unlocked, truly, said the Aching God, finishing Auric’s thought in the voice of his son, Tomas. Now I inhabit the very stones of my prison. They are my bones, my flesh. And I have grown.
Gnaeus cried out, made to run back up the tunnel, but its mouth was sealed.
No point in running, little mortal. There is nowhere for you to flee—you are already within me.
“Swallowed whole!” yelled Gnaeus, hints of hysteria in his voice.
Swallowed whole.
“We have presented ourselves!” Auric shouted. “Show yourself! Allow us at last to see the face of a god!”
Approach me, mortals, it replied, now speaking as Del Ogara.
Auric began walking down the center of the long chamber, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. After several steps, he turned, almost as an afterthought, to see if his companions followed him. They did, though Belech guided Gnaeus by the shoulder. Sira soon caught up to him, a fresh laurel wreath in her hand. The great arched walls of the chamber expanded and retracted, as though they were within the beast’s chest cavity as it took in and expelled breaths of air. As they neared the far end of the long oval sanctum, the ceiling overhead beginning to curve downward, Auric halted, spying something that made his heart leap into his throat.
At the end of the chamber was the membrane-covered pit, like that in the earlier chamber, like that from his nightmare, the color of a days-old bruise. In his dream, the membrane had covered the pit from which the animated corpses had sprung, like the skin of a drum, and what came forth from it was a creature of supreme malevolence. And it had but a single desire: to consume him. Not just his body, he felt certain now, but his soul as well. The surface of the membrane, ten feet in diameter, thrummed, pulsated with life, like the beating of an enormous heart. The sight of it filled Auric with a dread so deep and powerful it nearly choked him. Suddenly, sizzling feathers of smoke erupted from the thing.
Auric turned back to find Lumari, an angry grimace fixed on her face, breathing heavily. The alchemist, with a mad look in her eye, had thrown one of her vials at the thing, spraying the membrane with some sort of acid. Lumari looked at him with a weird mix of contrition and defiance. “I dreamt of that thing,” she said, her voice trembling. “A week ago—a drum set in the floor, the color of an old bruise. A face burst through it. Tried to eat me.”
Szaa’da’shaela vibrated at his side. Draw me, it seemed to say.
The smoke issuing from the membrane dissipated at last. Its surface bore terrible blisters that reminded Auric of a draft horse that had barely escaped a fire in Farmer Coso’s barn back in Daurhim, a year ago and a million miles away. But slowly, the fleshy material began to heal, and within a minute looked as it had before the acid had touched it.
Your weapons and skills are without power here, mortals, said the Aching God, again speaking as Samic Manteo. Forget you I am a god? Let us waste no more time. Which of you will be my evangelist, so that the rest can feed my endless hunger?
Draw me, the Djao blade whispered.
Gnaeus burst from between Auric and Sira, rapier drawn, a battle cry on his lips. He tried to plunge the blade into the flesh of the healed membrane, but the steel instead skidded across the surface, as though it were made of polished stone. The swordsman lost his footing and fell to the ground, weeping with frustration.
Draw me. Draw me, Auric Manteo.
“What do we do, Auric?” mumbled Belech. For the first time there was fear in the old soldier’s words.
Gnaeus stumbled from the membrane, whimpering. “D-dreamed of that thing, t-too,” he stuttered, stepping back away from its pulsing, mottled face. Sira began singing a litany against evil.
I grow impatient, said the Aching God, with the voice of Auric’s daughter. Must I make the choice for you, mortals?
For Auric, that was the last provocation. He pulled Szaa’da’shaela from its scabbard.
What have you there, mortal? the voice of Agnes asked, uncertain.
A word came to Auric’s mind, unbidden. He did not know what it meant, but he said it aloud: “Ush’oul.”
I do not believe you, mortal. You seek to deceive me, as those before you did. The Ush’oul were destroyed along with the Djao. Do you dare lie to your god?
“You are not my god,” said a now-defiant Auric. Though his fear was still present, it was as though Szaa’da’shaela fed him courage, running up his arm and into his heart. “And I will not bow down to you. None of us will.”
Gnaeus was now staggering back from the membrane. Auric took a step forward, dragging the tip of the Djao sword along the spongy flagstones as he did.
The Aching God screamed.
Suddenly, the pools of black tar across the grand chamber began to bubble violently. Hulking, vaguely humanoid forms began pulling themselves from them. They were sexless and had the color of pale, abused flesh, with muscular and rubbery legs, arms, torsos; but where heads should be sprouted obscene clusters of agitated, snaky tendrils. The creatures, at least ten of them, began to close on the Syraeics with awkward, lurching gaits.
Belech advanced on the closest and swung his mace at its chest with a loud battle cry. There was a sickening liquid sound as the flanged head of Busy Marlu struck it; the metal plunged into the form and a splatter of thick black liquid burst forth from a tear in it. The creature reeled back, doubling over, a gaping hole in its torso created by Belech’s fierce blow. But seconds later, the wound filled itself in. The misshapen beast, its flesh undulating with an almost lewd vitality, began lumbering again toward the old soldier.
Lumari faced another. She yanked a flask from a bandolier, downed its azure contents in a mighty gulp, and spat a gout of blue flames from her mouth, igniting another beast. Its serpentine tendrils twisted and intertwined with frantic urgency, shriveling and reforming, its hands swatting at the tongues of fire, attempting to extinguish them. The thing staggered backward, emitting a piercing shriek as its flesh peeled and blistered, oozing black tar.
A third beast came at Gnaeus, who sprang forward and plunged his shimmering blue blade into the menacing thing’s gut. Black liquid sprayed forth from the wound, staining the swordsman’s arm and upper body. The dancing tendrils atop the creature’s shoulders seemed to glance down at the sword stuck in its flesh, as though the wound was nothing more than a curiosity. Then its arms gripped the blade and jerked the rapier’s edge in deeper, at the same time drawing its wielder closer, close enough for some of its tendrils to touch the hand that still held the weapon. Another of the snaky feelers caressed his throat.
&nbs
p; Gnaeus loosed a bloodcurdling scream and released his hold on the rapier, stumbling backward, shaking the hand that had been touched by the feelers and clutching at his throat with the other. As he waved his hand in the air, bits of his flesh seemed to fly off like drops of water. He tripped and collided with one of the bony buttresses, then collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony. The beast, ignoring the rapier piercing its midsection, walked with purpose toward the wailing young man, whose pain was too great to note its approach.
Auric charged at the creature, swinging his Djao weapon two-handed in a great horizontal swipe at the cluster of snake-like vines atop its shoulders. The edge cut through the tentacles, eliciting a hiss like meat thrown on a hot griddle as they were severed. A dozen of the tendrils fell to the ground and shriveled, then were absorbed by the floor. Auric jammed the point of the weapon into the naked monster’s heart, if it had one, and gave the blade a vicious twist. The creature let out an ear-splitting screech and lost all form, splattering shapeless to the floor.
Sira had rushed to Gnaeus, who continued to cry out pitifully, and was tending to him as best she could. As Auric ran past them to aid Belech and Lumari, he caught sight of the hand touched by the creature’s tendrils: Gnaeus’s fingers were twisted, fused, withered, like wax from melted candles merged into a single mass.
“Don’t let those things touch you!” Auric shouted to the alchemist and old soldier.
The beast attacking Lumari had managed to extinguish the blue flames, its body blistered and blackened, and was walking again toward her. She ingested another vial of blue liquid and spat a second gout of alchemical fire upon it. The flames were extinguished more quickly this time, and her assailant closed on her with renewed vigor. Auric brought Szaa’da’shaela about in a whirling roundhouse, cutting the beast in half. With another cacophonous shriek, it splashed to the floor, a nauseating, fleshy puddle slowly sucked into the ground.
When Auric finally turned to Belech, his beastly assailant had already closed on the big man, enveloping his mace-wielding arm in the rubbery grip of one of its hands, grabbing the waist of his cuirass with the other. It leaned in with its dancing tendrils, touching his shoulder, his chest, his neck, his face. Belech bellowed and collapsed to the ground.