Before getting underway though, Tor and the Venatoré quickly identified the composition of the group they were hunting, relaying their findings to concerned ears. Eve enjoyed watching Tor and Gerard work together, some kind of strange kinship developing between them. She’d talked about what’d happened between him and Isabella with Tor the previous night and loved watching him going through the same emotions she’d been through after she heard the same story for the first time. Long years had separated them for so long, but she loved him more now than she ever had. He carried himself a little differently than she remembered and had grown in ways she hadn’t anticipated. The small things he did conjured warm memories in her mind and she yearned for them to find some alone time in order to reconnect.
“Rosalind is leading them with something much larger and heavier at her side.” Tor was reporting as Eve joined his side.
“The Archfiend.” She interjected, bringing the cold hard reality of their situation to the front of their minds. The same thoughts flitted through their minds at once, like synapses firing at the same time. This battle would not be easy. No one had faced such a creature before or knew what it was capable of. We could die.
“That means the two larger purple creatures are just behind them with a third more normal sized one in tow.” Gerard continued with the report and to try and focus minds. “After them, there are the remaining purple creatures surrounding a group of fourteen Naïves.” More flitting as they all thought about bow fourteen was a terrible number of Naïves to die.
“That leaves the two gorilla-like creatures at the back.” Tor’s brow furrowed as he delivered the last part as he marshalled his fear and disgust.
“What is it?” K'Chool asked, weighing up the odds in her head and wanting more detail in case they needed to plan their approach.
“They… They smell broken.” Confused looks from everyone but Eve encouraged Tor to continue. “Not only is the way they walk constantly changing but they are leaving bits of them behind.” He looked at Eve. “I think they may be Furies.” Eve’s shoulders dropped, and she shivered, before her brow creased in almost the exact same was as Tor’s had.
“Well!?” Khar said impatiently at the silence that came after Tor’s statement.
“They are incredibly powerful creatures. Almost invincible if the histories are to be believed. I do not know if they are as strong or as quick as the Archfiend, the fables of old were not exactly precise in comparing mythical beings, but, they are all terrible foes.” To everyone’s surprise, it was Fortune who offered up this information. It appeared that only he, Eve and Tor were privy to what the dark name meant. “They are pure rage and chaos. Unpredictable. Relentless. Never tiring or giving up they are a force of nature more than animal or creature. Untamed and lethal they are half bound to this world and half phantasm or ghoul. I pray you are wrong Torbjorn.” Another silence followed as they all contemplated what they were about to come up against. Counting out with his fingers, Khar felt it important to remind everyone of their dire situation.
“So, we have to defeat-” One finger. “One of the most powerful wytches who has ever lived-” Two fingers. “An Archfiend, which is a creature parents told their children about to scare them, a thing so diabolical one has not been created since the time of The Barren Sun-” Three and four fingers. “Two completely unknown creatures birthed from Landscaper seeds-” Five to twelve fingers. “Eight other unknown creatures, borne of the same cursed seeds-” Thirteen and fourteen fingers. “With two fury chasers to boot, who, apparently are two of the most fearsome skells to walk the earth. We don’t even know if half these things can be killed!” He dropped his hands to his sides, a little ashamed at his display before he began counting out something else with his hands.
“Still. There’s ten of us I suppose.” He smiled broadly, repeating the same fingers actions as he went with the new list as everyone watched, letting his infectious enthusiasm take hold. “One of the most powerful wytches who’s ever lived, PLUS, a peerless Nahgwal that make up a Dyad for the histories.” He looked at Tchook, nodding his approval towards a non-head, “Black Death.” The black form puffed up at being given such a strong nickname. “One of the most accomplished Venatoré in The Protectorate. The strongest Sojela produced by The Balance…” Eve and Tor rolled their eyes out of everyone else’s sight at hearing this. Tor would like to see K'Chool try and beat Eve in a fight. Eve would like to test her skills in that fight. “... A warrior of light, who carries the blood of Artoor Moniin’s honour guard within him.” He paused for a while, before raising one last finger. “And a Naïve, turned Sojela, turned seer!” The group needed the encouragement after hearing his first monologue, the second one trying to bring it in spades. More in how Khar delivered the titles, rather than what they actually were. K'Chool shot him a glance, corners of her mouth curling a little and her eyebrows raised.
“Fine. A Naïve, turned Sojela-in-training, turned Seer.” He laughed. “The Ten, that stopped evil in its tracks.” Khar looked off into the distance, waving his hands apart in wonder as if speaking to a crowd. The group ignored him after his grand gesturing and looked to Tor, who followed a set of deep footprints, that were in the opposite direction of where they started. He found a well-dressed man in a suit who’d made a break for freedom, his head a few feet away and the wound on both body parts cauterised.
“She’s slaved them.” He said in a matter-of-fact tone, standing up as he said it and walking back to the group. Apart from Xiang and Tchook, they all knew what that meant, stories of The Betrayer’s exploits common knowledge to all. So, K’Chool laid out what some of The Thousand Curses’ darker deeds were to them. It was the last thing talked about for a while as they fell into a defensive diamond formation whilst they walked, swapping positions every couple of hours to stay fresh and keep eyes out for attacks from any angle. They talked about whether traps would’ve been laid so caution prevailed over speed even though they knew Rosalind was sacrificing people as they progressed. They found a comfortable pace and by Eve’s calculations they thought they could get to Sahld’veba in less than thirty-six hours. Without slowing and taking small breaks they followed a strange, shambling collection of footprints left by the last people to tread the path they were on. It didn’t take a tracker of any skill to find the trail they left, but it took some skill to determine how fast they were moving and what small dramas they experienced that may have delayed them as they went.
Tor, Gerard, Fortune and the sisters kept updating everyone on the changes in the group, Eve using her magik, once they passed through the void barrier, to further validate their assessments. They walked through the forest, finding a campsite and finding two more bodies with missing heads and magikal wounds. Khar retreated into himself after seeing the man and woman’s bodies lying there holding hands. He knew their faces would haunt him the rest of his days, part of him wishing that he met his end at the hands of The Last Word or one of her cursed companions sooner rather than later. The two Naïves looked so peaceful, meeting their end with dignity and courage. Together.
“I can’t lose you.” He finally admitted to K'Chool after she asked him why he was being so quiet.
“Don’t worry. You won’t.” She said airily, trying to pacify the anxious Khar. That confidence usually did the trick with him, but after seeing his face she took a different angle. “You won’t.” She said more seriously, rounding on him and looking him in the eye.
“You know don’t you.” He wasn’t really asking the question but K'Chool answered anyway.
“Of course.” She’d known he loved her for some time. What’d started out as an innocent more brother-sisterly love, had turned into something different for him. Recently, she’d made the same turn, but not really realised it until then. Leaning in, she delicately planted a kiss on his lips. For someone so battle hardened and callous from endless training, she felt softer than a feather brushing against him. Staying there for a moment, they both enjoyed their first kiss, both hoping
it wouldn’t be their last. Khar struggled to comprehend what was happening having never really thought about what K’Chool would feel like. He’d only ever gone as far as fantasising what it would be like to be with her in other ways. K’Chool had surprised herself by wanting to kiss Khar but when they parted, they smiled, and Khar felt reassured, for now.
The remainder of the group were completely oblivious to the new emotional and physical connection that formed between Khar and K'Chool as they were going over the potential strengths and weaknesses of what they faced, trying to second guess the coming storm and how to defend against it. Their discussions veered away from the subject of sacrifices and the strange, ever changing gaits of the Furies towards attack plans they could actually visualise. Tor was also surprised to find that a bear cub had joined them, his protective, animal instincts wanting to take his infant kin away from the cursed family that adopted it. He rationalised that Rosalind and her creatures wouldn’t treat the cub properly and a feral part of him was struggling to get out.
When they had a spare moment, the sisters approached Eve and talked to her about the creeping magik that had made a choice to leave them alone. They went around and around the subject, talking it over and discussing how it felt to be invaded in such a way. Sharing this experience brought them closer together, Eve pleased that the people Gerard had surrounded himself with were decent, honest and loyal. They talked of Isabella, what she’d taught them when they knew her and what losing her had done to Gerard. In the sadness of the moment, Eve offered to teach them some of what the Chakra defence could do. They didn’t have long enough to master it, but they thought some limited understanding of the magik may help.
Everyone in the group was trying to get to know their companions, either as a distraction or to increase their odds when they reached Sahld’veba. Neither reason mattered really, just that they all needed each other in different ways. The hours marched on, the number of which not registering with them or how quickly the time drifted past. Gerard passed some of those stretches asking Eve about Isabella, the most animated he’d been since they met. Fortune was fascinated by Xiang, discussing his past and how the Naïves lived, marvelling at how they could exist without Magiks and the technologies they used instead. Xiang even quietly asked Tor about the first time they trapped Rosalind, inferring that he knew there was more to the story. Not willing to go into detail at that moment, the conversation was marked with talk of ‘the sacrifice they made’, rather than any specifics. Tor talked of the toll it took on them, rather than what led them to that sacrifice in the first place.
Tor and Eve were content spending their time with the others, enjoying these new relationships with a clarity of feeling they’d been missing for so long. As they neared their destination though, they drifted together and made sure they were unified when they reached Rosalind. Whispered secrets of their pasts wanted to be shouted, heard and explored by each other but they stayed as whispers. Haunted moments of their ordeals threatened to take them away from the present, but they stayed in the past. Without expressing it, they both couldn’t wait to share their journeys, wanting to take time over the sharing of them, but they instinctively knew what had to be done when the time came. They wanted to savour catching up on their experiences and enjoy the passage of words and emotions but for now, they had to focus on stopping Rosalind. Before long, heavily overgrown train tracks appeared, the tides of time passing them by, and they followed the rails around a long corner. Large walls grew, impossibly detailed arches disrupting their boring surface. Trees stopped growing as they went, green creepers and mosses favouring the shadows of the brickwork. A few large trees persevered and miniature versions of them sprung from broken masonry. Shafts of bright sunshine fought through the canopy, illuminating the particles that fluttered in their wake. They all stopped, looking to where the walls ended in a tunnel. Long ferns tried to hide the treacherous, black mouth of the entrance but all could see through the rouse. At the peak of the entrance, a loose spiral with a cross through the middle mocked the rest of the structure fending off the plants easily. Eve turned to her new friends, hardness in her face. She was about to lead them down to the birthing place of Necromancy, forbidden Magiks and The Barren Sun’s place of death.
“Surelikai give us strength.” She said to them as she gathered her own.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - THE STORM
The group gingerly made their way through the tunnel, K'Chool and Khar providing light with their magiks. The walls were damp, covered in roots and vines of strange composition. They all held a reddish tint and pulsed unnaturally, a few of the more rotten ones looking like they were vibrating and shifting in and out of focus. The tunnel was hot too, thrumming with vengeance and exhaustion. It felt like the life that was clinging to the rocks was tired of clinging. Tired of its existence. The sadness coming from the wall pressed in on the group, telling them to turn back. To forget their task and live with the consequences. The only person who seemed untouched by the magiks that surrounded them was Xiang who eased each of their pains by just standing near him. They huddled closer to the quiet man and kept walking, brains questioning what was happening here.
Before long they reached a huge opening in the tunnel that revealed a collection of broken and failing buildings. From high up they could pick out familiar shapes and odd obelisks that gave off the same energy the tunnel had. Corrupted plant life crawled over everything they could see, penetrating and suffocating the object they clung to. It almost looked like the creeping plants were devouring the walls of each structure, years of weather damage taking its toll as well from the huge hole in the cavern roof. They could see where the group before them had gone, not only by a path they’d created with fyre, but also by the almost blinding shafts of light spitting themselves out of the centre of the middle-most building. Sensing the urgency and trying to avoid their fears, they started moving quickly towards the light. Passing strange symbols, alters marked with dark stains and cursed with dreaded memories, each of them had to master their own feelings, forging forward through their own terrors and a broken pocket of civilisation.
Most of them had heard stories of this place. The birthplace of The Barren Sun magik, and now they knew, the birthplace of Necromancy. The air was thick with whispers from other places and dreamy recollections of events past, present and future. Had the place always been infused with lost souls, if that’s even what they were? Where were the plants from and what were they doing? Were they part of the secrets Sophia Reklan uncovered? Who made the obelisks and what did they do? What atrocities were committed on those alters? Eyes flicked from desecrated object to desecrated object, deadly visions and sounds penetrating their thoughts, icy feelings working their way into them through their extremities. It was inescapable. Everyone knew not to touch anything, mostly through fear but instinct telling them so as well. Xiang experimented by moving his hand close to the roots once or twice and when he did, they shrank away from his extended fingers looking like they were dying. Roots shrivelled into black husks, killing off tentacles to avoid contamination by the Naïve-void. It felt incredibly wrong that this place was so alive with dead magik considering no Lucid had set foot there for generations. The Barren Sun had been vanquished so long ago, yet the place felt awake and vibrant with abusive dark arts.
Khar seemed to be struggling the most, actual visions of what happened here coming to him violently and leaving him with no recollection of what they showed him. Noticing the effect it was having on him, Xiang stuck closest to him, fending the magik away with his presence. Knowing looks rippled through the group, each of them deploying what defence they had against the magik that penetrated the essence of Sahld’veba. Eve found that wrapping warm and loving memories around her head chakra brought the best relief, encouraging the sisters to do the same. Gerard and fortune were stoic, expressionless in their own concentrated efforts to dissuade the growing disquiet, and K'Chool, brow sweating, was helping Khar and Xiang move forward. Tor was carrying himself ta
ll, his inner fire and strength lending itself to the rest of the group to encourage them on. Tchook stood just as tall next to him and they looked at each other like lifetime long friends.
“We need to get to the light quickly. This sickness will lessen once we’re there.” His grey-green eyes looked into a non-head who responded with a gold shimmer and ruffling skin.
“Prrt, frrch.” Tchook’s tone matched Tors, serious and purposeful.
“Good idea.” They both walked back to the group and took in the sight. Each member of the group was suffering in ways neither could comprehend, Tor and Tchook fearing that this place would claim their lives before they even got to the light.
A Dyad in Time Page 49