I think it took us an hour to make it to the bottom. You couldn't just walk straight down you see. We had to walk in revolution after revolution to get to the bottom. Each time around getting one level in the spiral lower. After a time, it was dizzying. Seeing the same features over and over. A cart, a pile of fire wood, the top of a mountain peak. Then five minutes later the cart, the pile of fire wood, the top of the same mountain peak. It felt endless, but it wasn’t.
The smell was the first tip we received something was amiss. There was an odor coming from the hole in the ground, something alien and new. It was acrid on the tongue, medicinal almost, though there was no haze of putrescence or smoke to tell us the scent was there. It was clear and invasive, but not choking. To be truthful it wasn’t terrible, but the nature of it defied our explanation. Even now I can remember exactly how it smelled, and tasted, and there are no words in Lish or Entch to describe it. So strange.
The collapse of the soft earth around the tunnel was as you'd expect. Loose stone and earth had collapsed into a stronger passage that delved into the dark bowels of the Akeel mountains. It was man-made you see. Or made by something other than man. I still don't know.
The tunnel looked like the entrances to the grand rail tunnels through the Red Mountains to the south. Have you been to Ryobia through the tunnels? No? Ah. You see they are carved straight through the mountains by some technology lost in The Fall. Something our predecessors knew that we no longer do. This passage in the mine was perhaps six feet wide, and maybe a bit taller than that. The Red Mountain tunnels are two or three times as large at least. They're a sight. The top of the passage, the ceiling, was rounded off like the tunnels in the west. The stone, if it was stone at all, was smooth and featureless, almost as if it were melted out of the mountain's bones with an acid more powerful than anything we know of today. Perhaps they used The Way?
Strange torch holders hung from the ceiling, though the metal mesh was empty now. Centuries of abandonment had eroded them I'd imagine. I recall seeing writing on the wall of the dark tunnel, but it was in a language unfamiliar to me. I'd written it down in my journal, sketched it, but when it all happened, I was forced to leave my journal behind. I left everything but the clothes I was wearing, and the pouches on my belt.
Your mother and father volunteered to go into the tunnel first. It was decided that I would remain in the mine outside where I could keep watch for anything coming down. We knew we were safe from the Shadow Wolves during the day, but this close to the Eastern Wilds you take no chances. Far too many dangerous things all about. Death is around every corner, behind every tree.
It was lonely. After an hour down in the passage Alisanne decided to follow them. She was worried something had happened to them, which was a reasonable fear given that we had no idea what was down there. She grabbed her torch and her sword and shield and headed into the dark, whispering to the ancestors for guidance. I watched the birds give our hole in the ground a wide berth in between taking drawings of the writing on the wall. Oh I wish I hadn't left that notebook behind. All my time here with access to the House's library. I feel like I could've deciphered the script somehow. By now for certain. Perhaps I could've crafted a spell?
It was two more hours before they surfaced, all three of them. Your parents, Ellioth and Catherine were elated. Overjoyed in fact. They were speaking so fast to one another about whatever it was they'd stumbled on at the bottom of the tunnel I couldn't make out most of what they were saying. A series of rooms. They sounded like vaults to me. Alisanne though… She was dour faced. Worried. Scared. Whatever they'd seen down at the bottom of that hole inside a hole had shaken her, and it was on her face as clear as you can be.
"Weston, you should've come with us. Before we leave you need to go down and see what we've found. Unimaginable history Weston. Things from before The Fall! Things that will show the Artificers how to recreate so much of our lost science and lore. We could change the world!" your mother said. She embraced me. Your father—my brother—as well.
I smiled ear to ear. Smiled so wide it hurt my cheeks. Revealing lost knowledge seemed like the best possible thing all of us could've achieved, and if they told the truth about what was at the bottom of the hole, then we'd achieved it. We'd found ruins from before The Fall, and we hadn't even needed to go into the Plague Dunes to do it! Imagine; three hundred year old relics from before the Great Plague, brought back. We could usher in a new era of prosperity.
But Alisanne was shaking her head, and she spoke in a dark tone. "We must go to the Church with this. Let them decide what to do with what we've found."
At first the conversation was polite, and reasonable. My brother agreed that the Church should be informed, but that the Guild should be as well. Alisanne agreed initially, but after thinking on it, she shifted her opinion on the matter. "The Church will decide whether or not the Guild is involved. We weren't sent here to disseminate knowledge," she said. "We were sent here to investigate this hole for the Church of Souls, and to report back. That is what we will do. It is what we should do."
"This is too large for the Church alone," Catherine said. Now mind you, Catherine was an Apostle as well. Sworn to the Ancestors the same as your mother. A wearer of the cloth, a healer, and a lover of all mankind, and she knew with her soul that whatever they'd found down there was too much to trust to the Church.
Think about that.
Alisanne didn't take it into stock. She'd made her decision. "Enough," she said. "We aren't going to argue. We are being paid by the Church, and as Apostles, we're bound to our oaths to serve."
"Serve the people sister," Catherine said. She was getting angry. Her face was turning red, and she'd made fists. "We don't serve the Church, we serve the people through the Church. This isn't your decision. Ellioth and I are already of a mind to go to Eden Valley with this, and by vote that means you don't get to make the call." Then she turned to me. "What do you say Weston? Do you think lost sciences should be the sole property of the Church of Souls? Or do you think we should tell everyone about this?"
Now no matter what I say, I piss someone off you see. If I were to disagree with my brother and his love, they would call me a fool and we would be deadlocked, furthering the argument. If I side with Ellioth and Catherine, Alisanne would never forgive me. I wasn't in love with her, if that's what you were thinking. I see the look on your face. Alisanne was never that kind of woman. She was married to her duty. No room for anyone else.
I went with blood.
"We're going to go back down into the tunnel to the rooms, and we're going to grab some of the things we found down there as proof. The Guild and the Church will want to see them firsthand. We'll be back in a half hour, no more," my brother said.
"Wait here," Catherine had added to Alisanne and I.
Those were the last words I heard your parents say kids. Although when you talk it is a lot like hearing them again. Heartbreaking.
Most of my gear was sitting near the fire I'd built. I had sat it all down to get that journal out and copy the strange writing on the side of the tunnel. All I had on me as I said were the clothes on my back, my spell materials and my dagger. I wandered many yards from Alisanne as she sat and stewed angrily. She was drawing in the dirt, and as the minutes passed, she went from gently dragging her stick to digging and stabbing with it. You could feel her rage build. I think out of instinct I stepped further and further away, keeping my eyes fixed on the upper levels of the mine. If I ignored her, she couldn't possibly stay angry, right?
Oh wrong. Boy was I wrong. I never thought for a moment she'd do something as rash as what she did. Never anything so selfish and horrible.
"Enough," was all she said.
"What Al?" I remember asking her, still trying to not make eye contact, or even look at her. Then I heard her chanting and whispering again, but this time, I knew it was for a spell, and not for a prayer. I turned fast, and saw that she was surrounded by a nimbus of white energy. I could see the faces of the d
ead swirling around her, dozens of the deceased and freed. Spirits from all about the Akeel Mountains had gathered to her will, and with an angry, vengeful shout, she sent them into the tunnel.
I screamed, but I had no magic to stop her. The spirits swarmed into the hole, and with shrill cries of fear and loathing they clawed at the strange stone of the tunnel, and within the span of a single breath, I heard the stone cracking, and before I could reach her to stop the spell, the tunnel collapsed. Thirty, forty feet of the passage fell in, causing a further eruption of earth falling from above. A hundred tons of mine wall fell, nearly crushing Alisanne, and filling the air with dust and dirt. A stone rolled across my foot, broke a toe. Your mother and father were trapped inside.
Then she turned to me.
All those spirits, the souls she'd summoned for her loveless treachery? They turned on me too, digging their way out of the fallen earth, scratching and clawing. Hungry for the blood of the living. They were so unlike the kind souls your mother summoned. Those souls healed, and taught. They soothed emotions and cared about the future of those whose hearts still beat. It was as if Alisanne's voice reached out to a darker place where the angry dead coalesced, and schemed. She'd brought the souls of the murderous back, not the souls of the gentle and loving. I never understood how you could call upon the spirits of the dead to create The Way, but like all the rest of us, there are good Apostles, and bad Apostles, and in that moment, I realized which of those kinds of people Alisanne was, and what kinds of spirits listened hardest to her voice. And those lingering dead would kill me the same as they had killed your mother and father.
I summoned The Way from the world around, and manifested an umbral barrier. I was far weaker then, and my unseen shield bubble was only large enough to reach out an arm's length. As the wave of Spirits hit the shield the magic held firm, crackling with energy from The Way straining against their evil presence. It was small, but it held. All this while Alisanne fetched her sword and shield. Apparently it wasn't enough to send the spirits of the dead after me. She needed to run me through with her blade to finish the job.
As the spirits dug at my translucent barrier—screaming—I summoned The Way once more and hit her with a spell that would buy me time to escape. Have you heard of the ethereal grappler spell? Ha! It's a hoot. All these invisible tendrils of The Way wrap around the arms and hands and feet of whoever you send the grappler at, and they're tied up as sure as if you'd thrown a net on them. More sure in fact. The grappler is as tenacious as a whore on payday.
I suppose this isn't the time for jokes.
I ran. I had to, she was more powerful than I was then. I ran as far and as fast as I could to escape those horrid spirits and that wretched woman. Your aunt as I reckon, and your mother's twin. I can't imagine a poorer split between two identical people. I hope for the sake of all of Elmoryn you two look different, but are of the same good quality. I wonder if your mother and father raised you well? If you're here now, and from the tears in your eyes I suppose you're cut from a better cloth than Alisanne. Ancestors help us all if there are more like her out there.
I ran. As I mentioned already that damned mine was a mile run to get into, only now I was attempting it uphill. My umbral barrier would only last ten minutes at most if I stayed focused on feeding the spell, and my binding spell on her would last half that. So I ran. Fortunately I've always been in proper physical condition, and when you're fearful for your life, your body can achieve the miraculous. What took an hour for us to descend took me merely twenty minutes.
The worst thing I've ever experienced. When my grappler spell wore off Alisanne summoned more spirits, and sent them after the earth. I could keep them from harming me with The Way, but I could not prevent them from causing more landslides and ripping the ground right straight from under me. I tumbled more than once. Split my lip, shattered my left wrist. I think I was most broken on the inside.
Her rage ruined her chances of catching me. I was able to stay just ahead of the worst of her fracturing of the land, and that meant she had to climb over twice as much rubble as I did. I made the surface of the pass where the smelting huts were long before she could, and on flat ground, out of her line of sight her spells failed. Apparently she had to see me to send her minions after me.
Oh? So that's no longer a problem of hers? Mastered the art of sending the dead to do her bidding? And we spend so much time fearful of the necromancers.
You asked me how I escaped her. Remember when I said the walls of the pass were too high to climb easily, and that there was but a single entrance to the mine? I knew if I tried to run to the train through the village I'd lead her straight to the miners, and based on her killing your parents, and her continued attempts to kill me, the last thing I wanted was for her to pursue me into their midst.
I also knew that she'd follow me until she found me dead. Dedicated, that one. There was something about me she didn't know though, and it wound up saving my life. My brother and I, we were both Waymancers and—Oh, that's news to you? Then yes, let me be the one to tell you. We were both practitioners of The Way, though we sought no power from the spirits. I was a better caster than your father, though he was a better warrior. Early in my years I was obsessed with learning more about The Way, and I was accepted here at House Kulare as a student. There are limitless reservoirs of knowledge here, if you have the courage to look for it.
I'd taught myself a necromancy spell. Neither of you are surprised, and that is something we'll revisit in a few minutes I suspect. I'd found an old tome brought back to the House from The Empire that had several of the first recorded necromancy spells. Samrale had it in his personal study upstairs, and one night I spirited it away and studied it, copied it, and eventually learned it.
The spell allowed me to feign my death. Apparition du le mort was how the book had it written. Corpse Visage is what they call it now. I climbed the cliff. I found a shorter peak of it, and despite the pain in my broken hand I made it to the top. I moved through the forest as fast as I could, making sure to leave signs of my travel. I wanted her to follow me. I wanted her to expend her hatred pursuing me. I didn't want her to return to the village and hurt them. All the dirty faced children. I see them in my dreams enough. I wonder if she hurt them.
I ran through the afternoon, and at least the day following. I slept in a hole in the ground at the base of a tree, hidden behind the roots. Don't think for a moment the situation didn't wear on me. All of us were in a hole that night. She kept on my heel. I'd left enough of a trail.
I found the best spot to fake my death when I nearly died. I was trying to cross a river, walking across a log suspended above a fast moving current. The drop was ten feet at least. She'd caught up to me, and I was running hard. I moved too fast.
"It has to be this way," Alisanne hollered from the riverbank at my back. But I was not going to answer her. No words would've killed her dead and by then that's what I wanted most. She called out to her minions again, and before I reached the other side of the river, the log upended, and I fell. I had already begun the casting of the spell though, and when the log hit the river stones below a broken branch pierced me through. Straight through an old scar I got from a fire. The wooden shard came out my back and the spell set in. As I hung over the river, impaled and swinging in the cold October air the spell changed me. Drained me of my color and heat, and rolled my eyes up in the way all those dying in pain do.
She stood on the riverbank, watching with her spirits for far too long. An hour maybe. More it felt like. The pain of the wound and the crushing weight of failure almost cost me my true life that day. She left me without another word to rot there in the wilds of Duulan. If there ever was an unceremonious death that was it. And to think she didn't even try to release my spirit with the Blessing of Soul's Rest. She intended for me to have no afterlife. She intended for me to turn into a stark raving mad undead man, pinned helplessly to a tree for as long as it took my body to rot away, or be eaten by the vultures.
I lived. My spell faded, and when I was sure I was alone, I got myself off the branch piercing my side, and crawled up the log to the bank. I laid there for hours recuperating. I crawled along the river until the flat of the land met the water and I drank my fill of the sweet wetness. I suppose I should've learned an Apostle spell instead of a necromancy spell eh? The weather stayed warm for days, and I was able to follow the river around a peak and through a valley east until I found the rail line. I headed south.
I was able to beg a ride on a train in exchange for a week's labor in the city of Farmington. Big city, that one. Full of commerce and life. And food. You stop wondering why they called it Farmington when you eat there. For a hundred miles in every direction all you see is land for cultivation. It had all been harvested, but a farm is a farm, no matter the time of year. I saw a Plainswalker there too. Strange beast. Oh? You've seen one as well? Fearsome monsters.
A week turned into a month, and I was able to heal and save up a few hundred P casting some spells for locals. I bought a ticket Davisville, of course traveling through Daris on the way, and found myself a very secluded seat, and spent the entire trip through all of Varrland wearing an entirely different face. That's my gift you see. Changing things with The Way came easy to me, and easiest of all was altering my own appearance. Before we leave this room I could wear each and every one of you, and not a single person would know which of us was the real one. Minus our garb of course. That would take extra work.
I ran here, and Samrale and the House took me in as a teacher's apprentice. I've been here ever since. Hiding in plain site at the stronghold of the greatest Waymancers on all of Elmoryn. Alisanne should she find me here wouldn't dare to come for me. Your father and mother never came for me, and I never thought to look for them. I should've. Sitting here now looking at you I wonder how they escaped out from under all that stone. Never underestimate our family it would seem.
The Motive for Massacre (The Kinless Trilogy Book 2) Page 16