Disclaimer: none of the characters belong to me. However, this particular storyline is more or less original.

Chapter Three - - Those who fear the night


The riots were unexpected and unexplainable, even to the gurus. There seemed to be no real reason for them, but since when, Dalton thought caustically to himself, did the earthbound cling to any sort of reason?

After the king's passing, there had been a period of peace and security following the sorrow every subject felt. The king was a fair and wise ruler who would be very much missed. Pity went out for the girl Schala and even more so for the youngest child, who would spend his life without memory of his father. Dalton, in and of himself, had trouble sharing these feelings. The king had been his best friend - to him he was not someone's father or husband and it was almost ridiculous for him to be viewed in that kind of light.

Right now, though, those thoughts were not prominent in his mind. As he stood on the frozen turf of the terra continent, his cloak wrapped around him against the driving snow, all he could think about was the patch over his face and the people who had given it to him. Pushing these things away as best he could, he looked out toward the earthbound village of Alghetty, his ill-fated destination.


Shortly after the death of the king, strange things began taking place in the caves of the earthbound. At first it was a few isolated incidents of disappearance and an odd death or two that no one bothered to take seriously. After all, the earthbound were expendable. It wasn't until a full-fledged riot had broken out that anyone had become concerned.

And that, ironically enough, was not the greatest problem that Zeal faced at the moment. For some time, the power of the great sun stone - the energy beacon for the kingdom of zeal, was beginning to wane. According to the guru of life, it's strength might be enough to carry them for another decade at the very most, but when the power was gone, he couldn't foresee what kind of fate might lay in store for them. Without the power of the stone, the enlightened would cease to be much different than the hated earthbound. The Queen had at first resorted to drawing on the power of the elements almost exclusively to fuel the needs of the kingdom, but that was exceptionally difficult, and the energy gained from the process hardly made it worthwhile.

After hearing of the riots, the Queen had intended to dispatch an entire force of guards into the caverns to determine what had happened. Learning of this, Dalton insisted that he be allowed to travel with them. For all intents and purposes, he was still the general and high advisor of Zeal, with all the rank and privilege that the title entailed. The other guards stood around him now, robed in all the finery of Zeal, their weapons naked in their hands. Every eye watched him, waiting for him to move out, but Dalton was in no hurry. Moving his eyes upward, he surveyed what he could through the white veil of the clouds and falling snow.

High above him hung the mountain of woe, suppressed by the great many chains that the enlightened had used to bind it to the earth. Once, long ago, it had been part of the floating continents of Zeal. After the first of the wars between enlightened and earthbound, when those without magic had been driven from Zeal, the reigning king bound the chains over the commons of the terra cave to forever remind the earthbound of their lots, to be trapped below while their rulers sought refuge from the frozen ages of the world on their paradise in the sky. The floating mountain told them every day of their servitude, their utter worthlessness to the grand purposes of the world.

Looking up at the majestic figure, he couldn't help but feel more than a little pride. This was a symbol of so much more for him - no matter how dark his own past had been, he would always remember that he was part of a society greater than this. He could bear scorn among the enlightened because at the end of the day, he was still and enlightened. It was better to be permitted to scorn others, to realize that he was still superior to someone, than to descend again into the self -pity that he was used to.

It was advantageous that his loathing for the earthbound was already so strong, given that it had been an earthbound swordsman who'd cost him his eye and the respect of all he'd ever cared for. As far as he was concerned, they could wither under the shadow of the mountain until there was nothing left of them or their damnable race.

Deciding he'd stood long enough, Dalton rubbed his now-stiff hands and arms under his cloak as he trudged into the deep whiteness. Behind him he heard the surprised noises of the other guards as they hastened to meet his stride, but he ignored them and kept on.

Leaving the fury of the wind and the snow was welcome for the first fraction of a second, until the overwhelming stench of the terra cave caught him. It was all he could do to not to cover his face against it and the stifling heat that tempered the air all around him. No respectable human could be born out of such rancid filth. No, it was all too clear to him that the people who dwelt here must not be human at all. They were beasts, if even that. Glancing around him, he could tell by the expressions of the guards that they all felt very much the same.


The purpose of the mission was simply to secure Alghetty and attempt to find out what might have caused the riots and the bloodshed in the first place. There had not been any enlightened there at the time (most shared his opinions of the earthbound), meaning all of the violence had been between earthbound factions. Why the Queen and the council even cared, Dalton certainly couldn't say. He wasn't even completely sure why he'd come, except that he felt he should. It was an irrational notion that he was quickly beginning to regret, but by now it was too late to back out.

There was something strange here... something nearly tangible that served to compound all his uneasiness as he made his way through the caves. He watched with no real interest while the guards confiscated crude weapons from some of the men - earthbound were not permitted to have them, save for short stone knives used for hunting - and questioned those here and there who had seen the riots directly.

Blocking the horrible smell mentally was at the forefront of Dalton's mind, until a middle aged woman with matted brown hair and fewer teeth than she should have had came under interrogation. She was obviously reluctant to speak to the guards, but they gave her no choice. At last one of them resorted to casting a weak fire spell - not enough to hurt anyone, but certainly enough to loosen her tongue. After stuttered and shaking for a moment, words began to come a bit more freely.

It... it was... strange, a'right... The ones that did most a' the killin', they was the ones who'd been diggin' one o' the new tunnels, lookin' for ways to find more fresh water stead a' always meltin' snow. Something about her demeanor caused Dalton to raise his head and step forward slightly. Not enough to startle the woman, but enough to be able to hear what she said over the other noises of the cave.

When they come up from the cave, they was jus' swearin' an' an' ravin', not payin' no mind ta who they was killin'. Jus' madness. Jus' pure madness... The woman's eyes pointed sightlessly in the direction of the cave wall, her slender frame wracking now with suppressed sobs. She went on after while, recounting that most of the workers said very odd things as they murdered, almost as if each of them were arguing with themselves, almost oblivious to those who died under their pick-axes and shovels, or those who were trampled in the panic. After the massacre, the woman told them brokenly and at length, almost every one of them who had been responsible had taken their own lives as well. Those that hadn't were taken in by their families, and none of them had spoken or moved since the disaster had taken place.

Of course, the guards went out of their way to check and double-check this story, eventually seeking out the few surviving instigators of the riot. As far as any of them could tell, the woman had spoken the truth. The two men Dalton visited personally sat as if in a trance, not responding to any sort of outside stimuli. Eventually he became frustrated and exerted a bit of his magic, hoping to startle them the way the guards had done to the woman, but it was in vain. They just looked on, their eyes not following him when he moved. To the outside observer, it would appear that for all intents and purposes, they were dead.


This doesn't bode well. One of the younger captains, a tall, slender youth, said quietly to Dalton, having drawn him aside. Never in my life have I seen such a thing, nor can I say how it would have been possible for so many men to come under such a similar affliction. His eyes were deep with concern. Dalton only smirked at his superstitions.

Has anyone been down this tunnel of theirs since this whole affair took place? When the man shook his head, Dalton allowed himself a wry smile. I'll go there at once. In the meantime, send someone back to Zeal for one of the old men. If anyone could fathom what has taken place here, it would be one of them. Normally during any incident like this, one of the gurus would have been there long ago, but they had all become very involved in their own affairs of late, Gaspar most notably. The guru of time had not been seen in a great many days, and no one knew for certain where he'd gone.

At first the man had objected vehemently against Dalton venturing into the tunnel alone, but Dalton brushed him off easily enough. After all, he reasoned, he was an enlightened, not some half-wit savage of the caves. His mind was much stronger than that of any of the culprits in the attack, and he had his magic to protect him. Besides, if anything happened, the other guards would wait at the opening of the tunnel. If madness seized him, they could subdue him with their own spells. Not that it mattered, really. If he got out of hand, who would care much if he took the lives of a few more of these barbarians? Few would mourn such a loss.

The captain, for all his protestations, gave in rather quickly. It would take a good deal of time for the council of Zeal to approve a search party to move down into the caves, and in the meantime, all of the guards would have to remain in this hellish pit - whereas, if Dalton were able to clear everything up in a few hours, there was a good chance all of them could be bathing away the stench and sleeping in their own beds come nightfall. Smiling smugly to himself, Dalton shouldered his still-drawn sword and made for the lowest level of the caves, not far from the entrance to the place of chains.


The entrance to the new tunnel was blocked primitively with stones, a few spare planks and turned earth, but Dalton had no trouble opening it again. By the time he was done, most of the guards had begun filing down the unsteady ladders from the higher reaches of Alghetty . Not waiting for them to join him, he lifted his blade, retrieved a sputtering torch from a wall-bracket nearby, and made his way into the tunnel.

Down inside the mouth of the passageway the air was both cleaner and cooler, enough so that he brought his cloak around him again. It was obvious that the tunnel had been dug in haste, since aside from merely being narrow, there were very few shorings and piles of broken stone and earth obscured the way in places. He didn't let that dissuade him. Since he was here at all, he would see this path to it's end. Besides, anything - even madness or death - would be better than dealing with the ensuing panic he couldn't help but feel when he was around any of the earthbound. Even the old woman set him on edge. Because his memories of the battle that cost him his eye were so unclear to him, there wasn't any one person he could pin his loss on. To his mind, they were all equally guilty and should all equally share in his hatred.

Deeper and deeper the tunnel went, turning and twisting until he couldn't exactly say which direction he faced. The dankness became cold outright, as the flickering of the torch brought him neither warmth nor comfort.

Just around the bend in the path, the tunnel widened considerably. Anxiously
picking up his pace, Dalton stumbled slightly as his cloak caught on a sharp rock in the cave wall. The tearing sound startled him, causing him to turn sharply and almost drop the torch. Lifting his cloak to check for damage, he learned suddenly that it wasn't his cloak that had torn.

Ever since his first recovery, Dalton had kept the eye that Belthasar had made for him. The crystal, always bright, was a beautiful thing to behold. He didn't often wear it, but kept it in a small silken pouch at his side. Belthasar had gone to such great pains to make it, acquiring the stone for it at great personal cost, so Dalton felt somewhat obligated to keep it with him. In some way that he couldn't exactly explain, he felt that the eye understood him. It was familiar, and used to him by now. By keeping it close, he felt less afraid.

It was with horror now that he realized it had been the silk pouch that had torn. Panicking, he dropped to his hands and knees frantically to recover his lost treasure. But the eye was no where in the passage way. Starting forward, he stayed crouched low, one hand on the torch. His sword had been sheathed immediately after he'd discovered his loss, and he scrambled forward madly now, not bothering to check his speed or even look up until he was in the middle of the chamber. What he saw there gave him considerable pause.

The glass eye, coming to rest in an uneven depression in the cave floor, was glowing. Or perhaps glowing wasn't exactly the right word. More accurately, there was a faint, bluish light coming from the ground underneath the eye, and it was simply being refracted through the crystal iris. Whatever the case was, it was highly disturbing. Making to quickly retrieve his precious eye and leave, Dalton stretched out his fingers toward the small orb.

This one is better than the others...'

More than they.'

Untapped, unsung...'

He could be useful...'

Righting himself abruptly, he threw himself away from the eye and the light. For an instant he could have sworn that there were voices around him. What they'd said hadn't made sense - it wasn't like they had been speaking directly to him, more like he was a rude child overhearing words that hadn't been meant for him. Leaning back in gently and so very slowly, he reached out once more.

We should take him. He could do much for us, give us what it is that we need, perhaps.' The whisper caused every hair on his body to prickle at once. It was a dark, horrible sound that reverberated inside of him, making him wish he could take himself apart and cleanse himself of it. All at once, the voices were louder. There must have been thousands, all of them speaking at once. Clasping his head in his hands, he cried out in desperation.

Who are you?! What do you want?!

There was no answer, only more jumbled sound from inside his mind, where he couldn't escape from it. From his dazed, broken perspective, it appeared that the air itself was thickening around him, rippling angrily in an attempt to trap or harm him. He had to get away, no matter what the cost.

On that last word, he grabbed the eye from the fissure, ripping aside the patch and slamming it into place without a thought. As soon as he did, the world went black.


Ollen70: I'm probably going to go back and fix this chapter later. Right now, I'm so tired that I'm sure I left out some fairly important things. I don't think anybody's actually reading this story, but I still plan to update it again pretty soon. If, by chance, you actually HAVE managed to get through it so far, please let me know what you think. Reviews are very much appreciated.