Chapter 79: -Cautious Decent

Chapter 79: -Cautious Decent

The hallway that left the well they’d descended quickly split again and again, branching in all directions. There was no danger of getting lost just yet, though. This wasn’t just because of the river of darkness he followed as his heart pounded in Todd’s chest. It was also because all of the side passaged quickly developed an unfinished and irregular look to them. Only this main passage had been carefully fitted with red tiles and gold trim.

Before they’d decided to go deeper, Todd had ordered some of the men bringing up the rear to grab red candles from the alter so that they could mark the path in case they needed to beat a hasty retreat. That seemed almost unnecessary, though, as their procession cautiously made its way down a passage that really did seem to belong to The Temple of the Dawn.

Todd wanted to believe that was true. He wanted to turn the corner and find Brother Verdenian and all of the other visiting priests delivering some sacrament in a second chapel. To remind the people of the importance of pushing back the darkness or some such. Other men were whispering about such things behind him as they moved forward, but Todd couldn’t, though. He could see evil bleeding from the walls here, held back by a thin veneer of artistry. Sometimes the black clouds were so thick he felt it might choke him, and when he considered just how much his powers had waned in the last year or two, he knew that meant something terrible awaited them.

Ironically, if he’d possessed the power of sight he’d had as a boy, he’d likely be unable to even set foot down here, he thought darkly. Still, Siddrim’s gifts had not deserted him. They had merely transformed. He could wield the light better every year, and healing himself with it was also possible. That hadn’t been true even a year ago, but still, he worried that it wouldn’t be enough.

They’d passed perhaps thirty side passages and walked for several hundred feet in an almost straight line before their gilded walkway came to an end in a chapel that mocked the one above. It was there they found the first bodies, and Todd’s heart sank.

The Temple of the Dawn was a bright room dominated by the color white and accented with red, pink, orange, and gilded statues. This large round room was similar in many ways but inverted. The white pillars were black, the gold statues were tarnished bronze, and the sunset color scheme was replaced with dark indigo and violets. It was a complete inversion, and though they hadn’t yet found the parishioners, it was decorated with the bodies of the missing priests.

Above the altar, the Bishop had been crucified, and his red robes were stained almost to black by arterial blood. Strangely, though, he’d died with a smile on his face. He wasn’t the only one that had been murdered here, though. All the other priests had been hung by their feet on each of the pillars and bled like cattle with their throats slit. Only Brother Verdenin was absent. L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

“What in the name of sweet merciful light is this!” one guard wailed. Todd looked over to see if he’d cracked ad saw tears in the eyes of the guard captain as he looked up at his now-dead charge.

Sadly, Todd realized the warrior was at least as upset by how bad this would make him look as he was by the man’s death, and he shook his head in disgust. He looked around the room at the men with him and the growing certainty that none of them except for perhaps him was ready to fight whatever it was they might find down here.

“Alright, everyone,” Todd said, “I think this is officially more than we can handle on our own. We’ll cut the bodies down, bring them to the surface and then post sentries on the stairs until...”

Todd’s words trailed off as bells somewhere above him began to ring in the dark, and the bodies that were apparently strung up to the clappers of them began to sway like morbid wind chimes. He couldn’t feel a breeze, but he could feel something coming. Something dark.

“Brace yourself, men! Its—” his words were lost as a torrent of darkness filled the room, extinguishing every source of light except for the dimmest glow of his sword. That was barely enough to see his hands, though. It was the barest ribbon of light, but Todd held firm and resolved to use it like a compass needle to find his way back.

“Steady, everyone. It’s some kind of illusion,” Todd cried out, trying to overpower both the flow noise of whatever this was as well as the panics, screams, and shouts of his own people. “If we just stick together, we can make our way back out, and we’ll come back for help.”

That seemed to calm a few of the men down, and as he walked back the way they came, he heard a few people yelling for others to join them, and the clatter of mail and booted feet quickly followed him.

Todd gritted his teeth and ignored their words as he lashed out with his glowing sword in a fierce lunge. The thing that was holding the objects didn’t drop a single one as it deftly wove to the side of Todd’s sizzling blade. He followed up with a powerful slash, hoping to catch at least a few stray tentacles, but the monstrosity danced out of reach with ease.

“Let’s not fight among ourselves,” the guard commander’s head begged. “I am, but a simple messenger comes to deliver you the good news.”

“You are an unclean spirit, and I shall purge you by fire and light!” Todd roared, taking two steps forward as he tried hard to bring this monstrosity down. How many men had left that awful chapel alive with him? How many had died while he led them in the wrong direction? Todd did his best to ignore these questions, but they ate at him with every swing and every miss.

“You’ve been chosen to see what no living eyes have ever glimpsed before, Todd Graff,” the abomination said from all three mouths at once, creating a horrible chorus. “Behold - the true power of what is about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting world of light.”

“I need to see no more than you to know...” The words died in Todd’s throat as suddenly the lit brazier near him and several further back flared violently to life.

Blue flames taller than him lept ten feet in the air, and Todd could feel the chill radiating off of them from here. That alone would have been enough to give him pause, but the things that they revealed made him stare slackjawed and the abominable sights.

The room was massive. It was larger than the largest warehouse in Blackwater, and it was filled with rank after rank of the living dead. There were hundreds of the monstrosities, or perhaps thousands standing there at perfect attention like they were in hibernation. They weren’t, though.

Todd could see the evil magic that animated them and knew that with a single word from their master, they would all swarm him. Even with Siddrim’s light, he would last only seconds. These were not the simple reanimated corpses he’d fought previously. These were made for war, and no two were made identically.

Some had extra arms, or extra legs, most had weapons lashed to their hands so they could never be disarmed, and all of them had heavy armor riveted to their body. Each one of these would be hard to kill, and as soon as they did, they’d be replaced by another.

It was a terrifying sight.

“What in the name of the light,” Todd gasped. As he spoke, every head in the room swiveled to face him in a single motion.

“And that starts the timer,” the mocking monstrosity told him on all three voices as it produced an hourglass full of gold dust from somewhere. “You now have one hour left to live. After that, my master will scourge your soul from your flesh. Do try to enjoy it.”

Todd swallowed hard, not sure of what to make of such a strange threat. If he was going to die, why not just strike him down on the spot like it had all of the other men that had come down here?

Todd didn’t have the answer, but that didn’t stop him from coming back the way he’d come, ignoring his tormentor as he desperately searched for the way out.