HUMERUS
By Mayavan Thevendra
Part 5 of 8
BONES THAT BLEED
Travelling the dunes is no easy affair. It requires preparation, and organisation; it brings threat of fatal dehydration, attack by bandits or sabre cat raiders, and worst of all, it requires sitting on the back of a ferociously bad smelling camel for several hours at a time. For the magically inclined, however, there are certain short cuts that may be made.
In this quiet intersection of alleys, three skeletons and a flesh golem stood still and watched as their master, the Man in Black, began the activation ritual. In seconds, the air seemed to melt away, swirling back to reveal an arch of bright, blue light - a way-portal. This particular one led from the city of Lut Gholein, to a point some thirty leagues away, beyond the Golden Dunes, far to the southeast. With the portal open, the Man in Black turned to look over his servants, and just as well that he did, for he noticed that one had been maimed - the skeletal mage who summoned the Arctic chill had lost one of his hands. Raising his bonewand, the Man in Black touched it to the stump of his servant's arm - tiny slivers of bone cracked and split from the wand, sliding and scraping across to the skeletal mage's injured limb, collecting in jagged lumps, and fusing together with puffs of smoke. When the grainy surface had smoothed over, a fleshless human hand was left, pristine and undamaged. The skeleton held it up, flexing and turning it, before returning his arm to his side and lowering his head.
Stepping up to the portal, the Man in Black looked back at his retinue.
"MINIONS ENTER'
One by one, the skeletons and golem walked through the gateway, and as the Man in Black followed them through, the way-portal, with a crackling thud, snapped shut.
***
Comparatively speaking, the life of the flesh golem was a brief one; amidst the cosmic sex act that was the time-span of the universe, the golem's life had been the foreplay, there was no doubt about that, but during this briefest, merest flicker of a life, it had discovered secrets and unravelled mysteries that would baffle entire species for eons to come. There was a treasure trove of knowledge in the golem's mind, yet the golem itself failed to see the value in any of it. Why value knowledge that was so far removed from reality that it would never benefit anyone who discovered it? But here in this earthly realm, the golem had discovered questions whose answers could dictate the course of a person's entire life.
The future was rushing headlong into the present, and there was still one more decision to be made - the most important one of all.
***
Barry and Morag scrambled to their feet, and groped forward into the darkness. The thick, dusty air carried echoing sounds that made Barry freeze still with fright.
"Hello?" he whispered.
Something away in the distance answered with a hiss.
"Oh shit." Said Barry.
"Where are we?" said Morag, "where are the others?"
"We're.we're here. We're in his lair. This - this is where he lives. Tenblade."
A fierce yellow light pushed back the dark as one of Morag's hands erupted into flame. She swished it around, trying to find her bearings, then shone it towards Barry, and gasped.
"Barry, what's - what's wrong with ye?"
He was standing perfectly rigid, staring straight ahead. He was practically sweating terror.
"Barry, are ye a'right?" said Morag, grasping his arm with her other hand.
"The others.they could be anywhere." Said Barry. "His lair - there's a magical barrier around it. It.attacks any attempt to teleport inside, tries to - to separate bigger groups into smaller ones, so they're easier to deal with. I forgot it. Oh God, I forgot all about it."
"But.how could ye know about that?" asked Morag.
"I've.been here before, Morag," said Barry, moving at last, and turning towards her. "This.this is where I died."
"Where ye.oh Christ, Barry." Morag said, her voice quivering. "Come on. Come on, we've got to find the others!"
She led Barry forward, and the two of them ventured deeper into the darkness. It felt like they were underground, and the carved stone walls gave the impression of some sort of tomb, but they could sense a corruption coursing through it. Dried blood and fragments of gore were smeared across the walls and ceiling, and the sandy floor was littered with old, broken bones and skulls - some human, others distinctly sub-human.
Something low and furtive shimmied around in the blackness. At first, Barry and Morag thought they might be imagining it, but the sounds grew stronger as they walked on through the passageway, until they felt sure that they were being stalked by whatever nameless things lived in this awful, God- forsaken pit. Morag stopped walking, and turned around to face Barry. The sounds could be heard from somewhere in front of them, as well as behind; the two of them were caught in the middle.
"Barry.?" Said Morag.
They had come to this place to die. Alone, cut off from the others, and surrounded by creatures that killed as easily as they breathed, the two of them stood little chance, especially considering that Barry couldn't have fought his way out of a sack if his un-life depended on it. This was the best opportunity they were going to get; all they had to do was not resist, and it'd be over before they knew it.
But something wasn't right.
"Barry?"
A cold, scraping ring cut through the fetid air as a knife and a hatchet, both rusty with disuse, were drawn from their harnesses. Holding them in hands that would surely have been bone white even if they'd been covered in flesh, Barry backed closer to Morag.
"We've got to keep going, Morag." he said, his voice hoarse with fear, "We can't stop yet - not yet!"
"But -"
"Listen to me - it.it feels all weird! We can't die here, we've got to keep - LOOK OUT!"
Something grey and scaly darted forward into the light of Morag's flames, moving too fast for something of its bulk. Barry shoved Morag to the side of the tunnel, and caught the brunt of the creature's charge; the two of them tumbled to the ground, thrashed against each other, and with a sudden rasping hiss, the beast clawed its way backwards, Barry's knife embedded in its cheek. More shapes formed from the darkness in front, crawling and slithering their way towards the two skeletons.
Morag didn't even need telling once. With both arms outstretched, she sent a plume of roaring yellow flame forward into the tunnel. For a split second, they saw faces, hideous faces lit up, then engulfed in the magical fire. There was an appalling chorus of feral screams and shrieks as the creatures burned, and perished, and fell to the ground twitching and smoking.
Yet more monstrous howls rang out from behind; Morag turned, and clawed at the air with one of her hands, and a thick, sweeping blanket of fire stretched across the tunnel from top to bottom, holding the creatures back. Again she faced forward, and threw handfuls of white-hot magic into the space beyond; explosions rocked the crypt around them as they detonated, incinerating the surviving creatures, and flinging their remains in every direction.
"Come on, yeh daft bugger!" yelled Morag, dragging Barry to his feet. They ran on, leaping over charred, and still-burning corpses, on an on into the darkness. The flame wall Morag had left behind sputtered and died, and in the shadows behind, they heard the flood of monsters bounding through, wailing and screeching, gaining on them with every stride. Barry's head was swimming; something was wrong, terribly wrong - this wasn't how it was supposed to be. He had been prepared for anything, for monsters, for terrible, mind-numbing fear, but there was something else here. He'd thought of nothing else but dying, but he couldn't do it, not yet, not now. Something was pulling at him.
In a few seconds, they ran through into an open space, a huge square hall, lit dimly here and there by ragged torches hung from the walls. Half a dozen passageways branched off from this room, heading deeper into the labyrinth. Barry and Morag staggered into the middle, and glanced around, desperately.
"Any ideas?" said Morag.
From all around them, a deep, sibilant murmur pressed its way to the edges of the hall. There was a sudden rush of noise; some moving low and slowly, others crawling across walls, ceiling and pillar, the dwellers of the crypt poured in from all sides, closing in around the skeletons. With a great cry of defiance, Morag swept her arms around her, bringing to life an enormous, raging ring of fire. Screaming and howling, the creatures attacked. Those that made it through the inferno were blasted back by fireball after fireball, but the creatures were relentless, and seemingly without number; they came on again and again, cutting closer with each surge, and soon Morag had lost the advantage of distance. She waved her arms frantically, sending trails of fire spewing into the air; one of the creatures ducked and weaved its way towards her, and at last found its mark. It rocketed forward, pummelling against the skeletons and sending them clattering to the ground. The beast stopped, coiling itself tight and low, before screaming and springing forward - Morag looked away, hoping for something quick and final, but it never came. She heard something heavy and solid hit the ground, and shatter. She looked back - the remains of something awful were lying a few inches away from her, gleaming, smashed, and frozen solid.
For a moment, the creatures paused, stunned and confused. Suddenly the air chilled, and a biting cold washed through the hall; air currents rose violently, whipping up sand and stones, and in a flurry of roaring white, a fully formed blizzard fell upon them. All at once, they turned this way and that, bellowing their anger and surprise. Morag watched as a group of them stopped in their tracks, watched as they turned pale and glassy, as cracks coursed over them with harsh snapping sounds, and then saw them explode in showers of frozen gore and chunks of ice. In the darkness beyond the dying circle of fire, something howled - but it was no beast. From nowhere, a single figure leapt into the fray, charging headlong at the gruesome mobs, sending them flying with blasts of freezing air from one hand, ripping them apart with streams of ice shards from the other. Morag let out a cry of joy, and jumping to her feet, she added her magic to the mayhem. Waves of fire and ice battered against the tangled knots of monsters, now frenzied with panic; the sudden extremes of temperature ripped many apart, their ruptured forms lost in the magical swirls of red and white, and as the tempest subsided, the survivors fled madly back into the shadows, chased by exploding fireballs and whizzing spikes of glacial ice. Morag looked across at the figure as he called to her.
"Morag! Are you okay?"
She couldn't believe her eye sockets. Walking closer, she looked him slowly up and down.
"Kevin?"
"Yeah.it's me."
Morag put her hand on Kevin's breastbone, and looked up into his face. He was cold - he was always cold, but that old warmth was back in him. He was back.
"Ah Christ, Kevin love. I cannae believe it.I cannae feckin' believe it!" she yelled, and threw her arms around him.
"It's all right, Morag," Kevin said, a smile on his skull. "But come on, we've got to go - we've got to get back to the others. I've been looking all over the place, and you're the only one I've found."
"Well, Barry's with me - look, he's right over -"
But Barry wasn't there at all. He was gone.
***
The walls had turned into a blur, the sound of his feet scooping through the sand little more than an echo inside his head. He had made a dozen turns without even thinking; somehow, he knew he was headed in the right direction. Something other than fear was leading him now, something hidden, something forgotten. But he still felt afraid; it burned inside him, crying out for him to stop, but he couldn't do that, not now. Barry swallowed down his fear, and kept running. Shadows with eyes shrank back as he passed, giving him leave to move in their domain, even willing him on, and soon he came to the very heart of the crypt, a place forsaken by all goodness and any trace of hope.
By Mayavan Thevendra
Part 5 of 8
BONES THAT BLEED
Travelling the dunes is no easy affair. It requires preparation, and organisation; it brings threat of fatal dehydration, attack by bandits or sabre cat raiders, and worst of all, it requires sitting on the back of a ferociously bad smelling camel for several hours at a time. For the magically inclined, however, there are certain short cuts that may be made.
In this quiet intersection of alleys, three skeletons and a flesh golem stood still and watched as their master, the Man in Black, began the activation ritual. In seconds, the air seemed to melt away, swirling back to reveal an arch of bright, blue light - a way-portal. This particular one led from the city of Lut Gholein, to a point some thirty leagues away, beyond the Golden Dunes, far to the southeast. With the portal open, the Man in Black turned to look over his servants, and just as well that he did, for he noticed that one had been maimed - the skeletal mage who summoned the Arctic chill had lost one of his hands. Raising his bonewand, the Man in Black touched it to the stump of his servant's arm - tiny slivers of bone cracked and split from the wand, sliding and scraping across to the skeletal mage's injured limb, collecting in jagged lumps, and fusing together with puffs of smoke. When the grainy surface had smoothed over, a fleshless human hand was left, pristine and undamaged. The skeleton held it up, flexing and turning it, before returning his arm to his side and lowering his head.
Stepping up to the portal, the Man in Black looked back at his retinue.
"MINIONS ENTER'
One by one, the skeletons and golem walked through the gateway, and as the Man in Black followed them through, the way-portal, with a crackling thud, snapped shut.
***
Comparatively speaking, the life of the flesh golem was a brief one; amidst the cosmic sex act that was the time-span of the universe, the golem's life had been the foreplay, there was no doubt about that, but during this briefest, merest flicker of a life, it had discovered secrets and unravelled mysteries that would baffle entire species for eons to come. There was a treasure trove of knowledge in the golem's mind, yet the golem itself failed to see the value in any of it. Why value knowledge that was so far removed from reality that it would never benefit anyone who discovered it? But here in this earthly realm, the golem had discovered questions whose answers could dictate the course of a person's entire life.
The future was rushing headlong into the present, and there was still one more decision to be made - the most important one of all.
***
Barry and Morag scrambled to their feet, and groped forward into the darkness. The thick, dusty air carried echoing sounds that made Barry freeze still with fright.
"Hello?" he whispered.
Something away in the distance answered with a hiss.
"Oh shit." Said Barry.
"Where are we?" said Morag, "where are the others?"
"We're.we're here. We're in his lair. This - this is where he lives. Tenblade."
A fierce yellow light pushed back the dark as one of Morag's hands erupted into flame. She swished it around, trying to find her bearings, then shone it towards Barry, and gasped.
"Barry, what's - what's wrong with ye?"
He was standing perfectly rigid, staring straight ahead. He was practically sweating terror.
"Barry, are ye a'right?" said Morag, grasping his arm with her other hand.
"The others.they could be anywhere." Said Barry. "His lair - there's a magical barrier around it. It.attacks any attempt to teleport inside, tries to - to separate bigger groups into smaller ones, so they're easier to deal with. I forgot it. Oh God, I forgot all about it."
"But.how could ye know about that?" asked Morag.
"I've.been here before, Morag," said Barry, moving at last, and turning towards her. "This.this is where I died."
"Where ye.oh Christ, Barry." Morag said, her voice quivering. "Come on. Come on, we've got to find the others!"
She led Barry forward, and the two of them ventured deeper into the darkness. It felt like they were underground, and the carved stone walls gave the impression of some sort of tomb, but they could sense a corruption coursing through it. Dried blood and fragments of gore were smeared across the walls and ceiling, and the sandy floor was littered with old, broken bones and skulls - some human, others distinctly sub-human.
Something low and furtive shimmied around in the blackness. At first, Barry and Morag thought they might be imagining it, but the sounds grew stronger as they walked on through the passageway, until they felt sure that they were being stalked by whatever nameless things lived in this awful, God- forsaken pit. Morag stopped walking, and turned around to face Barry. The sounds could be heard from somewhere in front of them, as well as behind; the two of them were caught in the middle.
"Barry.?" Said Morag.
They had come to this place to die. Alone, cut off from the others, and surrounded by creatures that killed as easily as they breathed, the two of them stood little chance, especially considering that Barry couldn't have fought his way out of a sack if his un-life depended on it. This was the best opportunity they were going to get; all they had to do was not resist, and it'd be over before they knew it.
But something wasn't right.
"Barry?"
A cold, scraping ring cut through the fetid air as a knife and a hatchet, both rusty with disuse, were drawn from their harnesses. Holding them in hands that would surely have been bone white even if they'd been covered in flesh, Barry backed closer to Morag.
"We've got to keep going, Morag." he said, his voice hoarse with fear, "We can't stop yet - not yet!"
"But -"
"Listen to me - it.it feels all weird! We can't die here, we've got to keep - LOOK OUT!"
Something grey and scaly darted forward into the light of Morag's flames, moving too fast for something of its bulk. Barry shoved Morag to the side of the tunnel, and caught the brunt of the creature's charge; the two of them tumbled to the ground, thrashed against each other, and with a sudden rasping hiss, the beast clawed its way backwards, Barry's knife embedded in its cheek. More shapes formed from the darkness in front, crawling and slithering their way towards the two skeletons.
Morag didn't even need telling once. With both arms outstretched, she sent a plume of roaring yellow flame forward into the tunnel. For a split second, they saw faces, hideous faces lit up, then engulfed in the magical fire. There was an appalling chorus of feral screams and shrieks as the creatures burned, and perished, and fell to the ground twitching and smoking.
Yet more monstrous howls rang out from behind; Morag turned, and clawed at the air with one of her hands, and a thick, sweeping blanket of fire stretched across the tunnel from top to bottom, holding the creatures back. Again she faced forward, and threw handfuls of white-hot magic into the space beyond; explosions rocked the crypt around them as they detonated, incinerating the surviving creatures, and flinging their remains in every direction.
"Come on, yeh daft bugger!" yelled Morag, dragging Barry to his feet. They ran on, leaping over charred, and still-burning corpses, on an on into the darkness. The flame wall Morag had left behind sputtered and died, and in the shadows behind, they heard the flood of monsters bounding through, wailing and screeching, gaining on them with every stride. Barry's head was swimming; something was wrong, terribly wrong - this wasn't how it was supposed to be. He had been prepared for anything, for monsters, for terrible, mind-numbing fear, but there was something else here. He'd thought of nothing else but dying, but he couldn't do it, not yet, not now. Something was pulling at him.
In a few seconds, they ran through into an open space, a huge square hall, lit dimly here and there by ragged torches hung from the walls. Half a dozen passageways branched off from this room, heading deeper into the labyrinth. Barry and Morag staggered into the middle, and glanced around, desperately.
"Any ideas?" said Morag.
From all around them, a deep, sibilant murmur pressed its way to the edges of the hall. There was a sudden rush of noise; some moving low and slowly, others crawling across walls, ceiling and pillar, the dwellers of the crypt poured in from all sides, closing in around the skeletons. With a great cry of defiance, Morag swept her arms around her, bringing to life an enormous, raging ring of fire. Screaming and howling, the creatures attacked. Those that made it through the inferno were blasted back by fireball after fireball, but the creatures were relentless, and seemingly without number; they came on again and again, cutting closer with each surge, and soon Morag had lost the advantage of distance. She waved her arms frantically, sending trails of fire spewing into the air; one of the creatures ducked and weaved its way towards her, and at last found its mark. It rocketed forward, pummelling against the skeletons and sending them clattering to the ground. The beast stopped, coiling itself tight and low, before screaming and springing forward - Morag looked away, hoping for something quick and final, but it never came. She heard something heavy and solid hit the ground, and shatter. She looked back - the remains of something awful were lying a few inches away from her, gleaming, smashed, and frozen solid.
For a moment, the creatures paused, stunned and confused. Suddenly the air chilled, and a biting cold washed through the hall; air currents rose violently, whipping up sand and stones, and in a flurry of roaring white, a fully formed blizzard fell upon them. All at once, they turned this way and that, bellowing their anger and surprise. Morag watched as a group of them stopped in their tracks, watched as they turned pale and glassy, as cracks coursed over them with harsh snapping sounds, and then saw them explode in showers of frozen gore and chunks of ice. In the darkness beyond the dying circle of fire, something howled - but it was no beast. From nowhere, a single figure leapt into the fray, charging headlong at the gruesome mobs, sending them flying with blasts of freezing air from one hand, ripping them apart with streams of ice shards from the other. Morag let out a cry of joy, and jumping to her feet, she added her magic to the mayhem. Waves of fire and ice battered against the tangled knots of monsters, now frenzied with panic; the sudden extremes of temperature ripped many apart, their ruptured forms lost in the magical swirls of red and white, and as the tempest subsided, the survivors fled madly back into the shadows, chased by exploding fireballs and whizzing spikes of glacial ice. Morag looked across at the figure as he called to her.
"Morag! Are you okay?"
She couldn't believe her eye sockets. Walking closer, she looked him slowly up and down.
"Kevin?"
"Yeah.it's me."
Morag put her hand on Kevin's breastbone, and looked up into his face. He was cold - he was always cold, but that old warmth was back in him. He was back.
"Ah Christ, Kevin love. I cannae believe it.I cannae feckin' believe it!" she yelled, and threw her arms around him.
"It's all right, Morag," Kevin said, a smile on his skull. "But come on, we've got to go - we've got to get back to the others. I've been looking all over the place, and you're the only one I've found."
"Well, Barry's with me - look, he's right over -"
But Barry wasn't there at all. He was gone.
***
The walls had turned into a blur, the sound of his feet scooping through the sand little more than an echo inside his head. He had made a dozen turns without even thinking; somehow, he knew he was headed in the right direction. Something other than fear was leading him now, something hidden, something forgotten. But he still felt afraid; it burned inside him, crying out for him to stop, but he couldn't do that, not now. Barry swallowed down his fear, and kept running. Shadows with eyes shrank back as he passed, giving him leave to move in their domain, even willing him on, and soon he came to the very heart of the crypt, a place forsaken by all goodness and any trace of hope.