MASK OF THE CHILD
A Dark Souls fanfiction by MungoJerry
- Chapter 5 -
Chasm
The light grew dimmer as the party journeyed further down, slaying any twisted beasts in their way. When the creatures were cleared, there was only silence- occasionally broken by the splitting of stone as the city sunk under its own weight.
After felling a final (frustratingly resilient) monstrosity, Ciaran stepped back outside the grand hall. This building was at the lowest point of Oolacile's sinkhole, found at the end of a wide, paved road. Statues flanked the walk, robed figures holding the likeness of Oolacile's famous pale branches. Each was more or less identical.
And all were equally, freshly headless. It was surprisingly deliberate, given the population. Maybe it was done early on. It seemed someone knew who to blame after all.
She snorted and walked back inside, skirting the slain creature. Even unmoving, it's features were difficult to discern, all lumps of flesh chained to a wooden pyle. A heavy forged weight was attached to one of the chains, perhaps meant to slow the creature down. It did not. Dodging the weight swinging through the air had been a nuisance.
The sorcery running the elevators throughout the city still worked, they had found. At the back of the hall was a passage leading to one such elevator. They took it down, following the ichor trail. The light of the magic moving the stone was gentle and cool, illuminating the claustrophobicly close walls sliding past. At the bottom they found a dungeon with rows of iron barred cells. The rusted iron was rent apart, bent outward by something making an escape, something absurdly strong. Ciaran thought of the creature upstairs and walked further. The stone wall in the back was broken out, rubble piled into the dungeon. Perhaps the madness had started here.
Beyond the break in the wall lay a deeper darkness, a cavernous blackness that reminded her of the terrible creature from the colosseum. The trail seemed to eat into the stone, here, and plunged off the edge of a cliff into nothing. A footpath led through the cavern on their left. They struck torches and moved onward, the knights hesitating before following their Lady.
"Stay close," she said unnecessarily.
As they wound down the uneven path they found more bodies, of the monstrous sort they'd encountered above. But these were crushed and strewn about- some in pieces- almost beyond recognition. A new trail of fresh ichor revealed itself.
She went through here. We're close. Her jaw clenched involuntarily.
Something abruptly moved in the darkness, and the four turned with weapons drawn, torches held high.
A fearsomely large wolf came slinking out of the darkness, tail lowered in apparent shame. The hilt of a large sword was gripped in its mouth, sword tip trailing the ground. Ciaran felt a torrent of relief. She dropped to her knees and held out her arms, beckoning Sif into her embrace.
"It's Artorias's pup!" one of the knight's exclaimed.
When the wolf remained reticent, she whispered, "He lives." At that the wolf dropped the sword and rushed into her arms with joyous howls and whines, nearly knocking her over. Ciaran rubbed the wolf's ears and wrapped her arms around the thickly furred neck. "Quietly, now! It wasn't your fault." I forgive you. What could you have possibly done in the face of all this? After a moment more, Ciaran pulled back, looking the animal over for injuries, "Are you hurt?"
The wolf jumped back and spun around, stood straight and emitted a low, sharp whuff.
Ciaran stood, "The caravan has a head start, but I know you can catch up to them. Go to him! He needs you." And Ciaran knew it. The benefits of a friendly, warm, furry body could not be overstated.
Sif sneezed, then gave a low rumbling growl that transitioned to a whine. The knights looked at each other.
"Our goal lies yet ahead," Ciaran replied slowly, understanding.
Sif gave another whuff, whirled around, and retrieved her fallen sword, swinging the hilt into a more comfortable position within her clamped jaws.
This was easy enough for the knights to understand. One laughed, "She is as stubborn as her master!"
Ciaran gave a sigh, then let a rueful smile spread behind her mask. "Then come. We must retrieve Princess Dusk."
After sharing a ration and water with the wolf, They continued deeper into the cave, Ciaran relieved to have her trusted ally at her back. She turned to the wolf, "Do you know what we face?"
Sif slowed slightly, her ears sweeping flat and she refused to look Ciaran in the face. That could be read several ways, Ciaran thought. "We are tracking a creature that came down from above, that made this trail."
The wolf gave a vague sniff of the trail, then sent her a quick, enigmatic look and continued forward, picking up speed.
They crossed a bridge of ancient, unfamiliar architecture- fallen over the pit of yawning dark- then began making their cautious way down a curving tunnel when the keening started.
Vicious wails split the air and made the walls of the chasm vibrate. Ciaran crouched down next to the wall, involuntarily clutching at Sif's pale scruff as the oversized wolf flattened its ears and shrank to her side, teeth bared and glimmering. Without thinking, Ciaran covered those ears with her hand. Sif didn't even have a helmet, after all.
"Gods!" One of the knights spat, taking a step back up the tunnel, nearly slipping on loose rock. The keening didn't stop, and covering their ears did nothing to drown it out. It seemed to vibrate their very bones.
After an eternity, there was only a ringing in Ciaran's ears. When she checked on the knights, they appeared dazed, and Sif appeared twice more her already impressive size, fur on end and shaking her head. Ciaran released her ears and smoothed down the ruff, patting Sif's snout when she offered an appreciative lick to her gauntlet, despite how little Ciaran's hands must've helped.
"Steady now," she murmured, just in hearing of the knights. Partly to herself. Had that been Manus, or…?
"My lady?" one of the knight's asked. In answer she signed at them to wait. After a pregnant period of time without further disturbance, she signed again ahead of them with one hand- they would continue.
They moved forward with care and purpose, the silence making Ciaran feel exposed. When they reached a large pit in the ground, she noticed a faint light, like the kind that used to be given off by rare mushrooms that grew in Oolacile's royal wood. Sif's ears swung back as she sniffed the edge and shrunk back, whining softly. Ciaran reached out to pat her head, wishing she could take her gauntlet off and run her fingers through the great wolf's ruff, but there was no time for such comforts. The darkness felt full of eyes. And it would look strange in front of the men.
She silently motioned for them to clear the area around the hole and prepare ropes for rappelling. Not that she and Sif would need it on the way down. She regretted not having her own experienced blades-women to spare for this sortie.
Ciaran fished out a prism stone from a small sack and tossed it into the pit. It lit the walls as it fell before shattering on the floor of a cavern below. When there was no response from the pit for some time, she threw several more to demark the ground and surface of the wall. Instructing the knights and wolf to wait for her signal, she descended first, climbing down the rough ledge and gripping the slick surface of the stone, sharp fingers of her gauntlets granting purchase. With the grace and skill befitting a Lord's Blade, she made her way to the floor of the cavern.
As she descended, forearms aching, she thought she could hear the hush of a breeze, or perhaps the deep rushing of an underground stream. She could feel a brush of air, too warm for this deep underground. Reaching the bottom, she beheld the sight before her, and realized with growing disquiet that the sound she heard was neither wind nor water.
The cavern was larger than she expected, ceiling vaulting into blackness. Rubble from broken ceremonial stones littered ground rent with gouges and freshly shattered stone. Ciaran had the sense she was standing in the aftermath of dueling titans.
If that was the case, who had won?
But none of these were the ultimate source of her unease. Spread among the ruin was a carpet of bio-luminescent… lichen? Moss? Slime? Short filaments waved slowly in some areas, like grass in a field. The glow slowly brightened, then dimmed to near imperceptibility. Then brightened again. This slow pulse timed with the rushing sound. Like exhalations. Ciaran took a step back, despite herself.
She wanted to be convinced that this was a natural part of the cave. Perhaps something documented by passionate scholars. But something about the way it moved, breathed, made her senses scream warning, even if the appearance had changed. Was this a manifestation of Manus? Could it be her?
After a period of tense observation, she drew her tracers- slowly- alert. If this was a manifestation of rampant humanity, it looked markedly different from what she'd seen before.
She stepped towards the expanse, heart pounding. When she reached the edge it began to shrink from her, light moving through it in gentle waves, brightening embedded rosettes of blue, green, and colors in-between. A dark path, defined by the retreat of the glowing substance, began to meander its way through the subterranean pasture, leading to the center. There, the grass seemed to grow larger, closer together, waving and sparkling with that dim, blue-green light. An invitation? A trap?
She didn't like it.
Not taking her eyes off the mass, she went back to where she had descended. She signaled for Sif and two knights to join her, wondering if she was making a mistake. She heard scrabbling on stone before Sif landed with surprising softness. The two knights rappelled down as quietly as they could, but it was a pointless endeavor in their clinking armor. They landed noisily, making Ciaran wince and check the mass again for any reaction.
"Lady Ciaran?" one knight asked with hesitation. She held a finger to the sanguine mouth of her mask, then turned and crouched next to Sif, who's eyes were locked on the lights.
"What do you think?" Ciaran asked, just loud enough for Sif to hear. "Is that from Manus? Or is it what we seek?" The wolf looked at her sidelong, then lowered her head and dropped the blade from her teeth. Sif could move faster without it.
"Careful," Ciaran said, anxiously.
Sif approached the mass, sniffing the ground with interest. Ciaran could only imagine the story the wolf read there. Had she come this far with Artorias?
Sif gave a low growl when she reached the edge, ears pointed forward. When the mass moved, she leapt back like a cat, but it was only retreating from her like it had Ciaran. It continued to do so at a measured pace, pulling into the center. Sif, suddenly excited, ran back to retrieve her sword, then sprinted after the retreating edge.
Ciaran gripped her weapons. "Stay here," she told the knights sharply, and was after Sif before they could protest. She heard them draw their weapons in preparation, but they didn't follow. Sif followed the dark path without stepping on the moss to either side, waiting for it to retreat before moving forward. The grass grew larger the further they went, waving and sparkling with that dim, alien light, fronds waving like a moonlit field.
Ciaran and Sif held back when they sensed they'd reached the center, then stiffened at the sign of fresh movement. The central mass formed a cocoon that opened like a flower, sides peeling down to reveal the form of a young noblewoman dressed in gold and lace. She shivered in a fitful sleep. Princess Dusk!
The mass retreated further, lowering Dusk to the ground. The pulse of light grew slower, and patches of the mass began to turn dark and evaporate until there was only a dim, disparate skein of filaments crossing the ground. What just happened? It was giving her up? Where did it go?
Sif rushed forward, heedless of the eerie remains, and began sniffing the princess, then turned to Ciaran and whined.
Despite her misgivings, Ciaran hurriedly joined her and removed a gauntlet, putting her hand on the princess's pale, damp forehead. "Princess Dusk! Can you hear me?" The girl only groaned and shuddered, as if in a nightmare. "Sif, get the others!" The wolf sprinted off, clearing rubble in great, arcing leaps. Ciaran checked Dusk for obvious injuries, then sheathed her weapons, replaced her gauntlet, and gathered the princess up in her arms. She followed Sif.
Questions and suspicions careened through her skull. Confusion was a weapon on the battlefield, and she didn't like it being used against her. But the princess- she still couldn't believe they found her- was weak, and needed attention. The additional burden forced her to choose her steps through the rubble with more care.
Ciaran was about halfway back when she saw the body. Her stomach lurched.
There was a limp, ragged figure splayed across the stone, partially armored and unmoving. She heard Sif and the knights approach, and turned reluctantly away. She handed the princess over to one knight.
"Get her out and back to the healers by Gough. Now! Don't wait for me."
"M-ma'am!" the bewildered knight carefully took the princess, struggling with her skirts. The group hurried back and made arrangements for their ascent, tying the end of the rope into a harness that would allow one knight- carrying Dusk- to be pulled up. One climbed up to assist the third in pulling. Sif sat next to Ciaran, watching.
"Sif, go up there and help. Escort them out," Ciaran said.
Sif stared in return, ears swinging back.
"There's…" Ciaran sighed, "there's something here I need to take care of, first." She crouched down and gave Sif a scratch behind the ears, mindful of the sharp tips of her gauntlet. "It's okay. I know how to be careful, too."
Sif gave a soft whine and leaned into Ciaran's side. She sniffed the air and looked in the direction of the body, ears forward with interest.
Ciaran stood and pointed straight up, "I charge you with protecting the princess and your comrades. Go!" She felt a little guilty for sending the wolf away, for several reasons, but this was for the best.
Sif licked her chops with a huff, then gave her a final, passing brush with her tail before ascending, using her supernatural strength to leap and climb up the sides. After the group had secured Dusk, Ciaran urged them on, promising to follow. She knew Sif would get them safely back to the healers.
And what of herself? Now alone, the knights had left her with a torch and the rope up. She snuffed out the former, sitting down on a rock and setting it down next to her, nurturing a hunch. She waited patiently as her eyes grew used to the darkness and picked out the dim, guttering threads forming a web on the ground. This whole time, she had been readying herself for battle, but down here it seemed almost… serene? The violence of the coliseum distant. The calamity that had wrecked these stones passed.
She got up and walked across the web, hand on a tracer hilt. They grew more densely as she approached the body. Now that she had the time, she could see it more clearly. Silver knight's greaves- worn and aged, faintly tinted blue-green by the light. Articulated gauntlets. A grey, gold hemmed tunic like the fire witches would wear. Where did she get those-? She, because it had to be her.
Ciaran drew her tracers when a soft rushing sound surrounded her, resolving itself into a whispering voice that echoed through the space.
"It's…..you…..."
She spun around, seeking a source.
"...here...…"
She stopped and turned back to the body, kneeling down for a closer look. She could detect the barest movement of the tunic. Her eyes moved up and found a face, partially obscured by half of a broken mask.
"Are you Myssa?" Ciaran asked, tentative.
"...yes…"
Kill her now.
Instead, she reached out with the tip of her tracer and gingerly flipped the mask over. Ciaran expected the emaciated, half corpse appearance of an undead, but she saw an astoran- pale skinned, mute-brown hair once kept in a neat chignon now half loose and tangled. Dark, shadowed eyes stared, empty and unblinking, through barely open slits. She was not old, but certainly not a child, as Gough had referred to her. The body could've been one of Ciaran's blades.
This was Myssa? This is what she had faced in the colosseum?
There were two ways for an undead to look like this. To look human. One was to simply not go hollow. The other required the consumption of raw humanity. It could rarely be scavenged, but usually it was taken. She felt her mouth curl in disgust.
"...do you know…" the whisper returned, seeming to struggle to put words together, and Ciaran saw the lips barely move, "...how to...banish?"
How to kill an undead for good. Keep them from being reborn in the flames of a bonfire.
"Yes," Ciaran answered.
"...good…"
Silence stretched into minutes, and Ciaran sat back, sheathing her silver tracer, but keeping out the gold. She wrapped her arms around her knees, her view of the woman partially obscured by the light of her scimitar.
"...what." An observation, a question.
"Why?" Ciaran answered.
There was no reply, but the dim filaments seemed to flicker.
"How did you become a monster?" She changed her question.
After a space, the whisper answered. "...Dark- stalker… Kaathe…"
Kaathe? The serpent! Then that meant-
"-only way-"
A darkwraith. Ciaran stood suddenly in horror. She was a darkwraith! But they had been snuffed out- drowned, buried- under the sin of New Londo. The greatest enemy of god and man, anathema to life and light, they pillaged the humanity of their fellow man, killing and feeding. How was there one here now? Had she escaped?
Ciaran had no doubt about what she had to do, but none of it made sense. The only thing here that neared the definition of a darkwraith was the dark form that had nearly killed her.
And shouldn't that be enough?
Feeding. She had been feeding off of him.
She glanced at the filaments, remembering the glowing expanse. Artorias, returned. Then what was all of this?
"How? New Londo has been sealed."
"...I...do not belong… here," Like the dark man with his foreign invectives and strange garb. "...your present...my past…Manus brought me...use bonfires." So the bonfires went even through time? She again questioned the gods and their wisdom. She had always wondered why the royal family chose to help develop the bonfire network, not wholly satisfied that its use was gated by a relic.
"Where is Manus?"
"Killed- him..."
Ciaran sighed, sitting back down again, not doubting the woman's words. If Manus was the source of the abyss, then it would stop spreading, and Oolacile would stabilize. Another double edged sword. And another paradox.
If Elizabeth had known she was a darkwraith, she would've told Ciaran. But the sage mushroom had been right. Even now, Dusk was returned to the surface- insensate but alive- and Manus gone.
"Why did you do all of this?"
"...save her…"
"No," Ciaran raised her voice, "You could've killed him and gone past, but you didn't. You..." she trailed off.
"...I did not.. want him to... die." she said, speaking a little more clearly than the whispers before. Stating it so simply. Ciaran felt her hands clenching the ground.
"... extraction...rough...sorry..."
Extraction. "You siphoned off the abyss essence," Ciaran realized, mind spinning. Of course. And the way to forcibly siphon humanity was known only to the darkwraiths. "You learned the secret of the dark hand from Kaathe. Then-" she gestured to the remnants of bio-luminescence all around them, "what is all this? What did you do?"
Ciaran heard a faint sigh, "... don't know. ..it wanted to.. control me… but.. made it listen."
How alarming. "You still haven't answered my question. Why did you go this far?"
An odd sound, a hint of laughter? "...childish dreams...of a foolish... undead hollow..tired of death.." Ciaran noticed the voice was coming more from the woman in front of her than around her, and weaker for that. The filaments were beginning to fade.
Ciaran considered her answer.
"Death is our closest companion. It doesn't leave people like us be," she said, then, wondering at her own use of us, "You don't look hollow to me."
"Any... more questions?"
Thousands. "Why do you want me to banish you?"
"Don't want… but… not sure what I've.. become."
Ciaran didn't know either. She didn't understand what this meant. Powerful undead, chaotic humanity, and wraith hexes channeled for altruism. Was this what Lord Gwyn had been afraid of? What sort of plans would Gwyndolin have for her, if he knew? She thought back to the chaos and fear in the colosseum, and knew what she should do- was sworn to do.
Ciaran was to eliminate threats to the kingdom. If Ornstein had been here… but he wasn't. And Artorias was going home.
What kingdom?
"I can't let you live, but I can't let you die, either. Tell me, what is it like where you are from-" Ciaran was interrupted by a flash of light, then another. She leapt to her feet as the remaining filaments sparked around them and crumbled into ash. The body on the ground tensed.
"...HE- IS HERE-" the woman croaked with sudden urgency, weary force.
A sharp, hot pain blossomed from Ciaran's lower back, and she stumbled forward. She reached around and pulled out a fine dart, the back half crafted in delicate metal to resemble a rose. Her knees buckled as a numbness began to spread through her body, and she fell next to Myssa, struggling to hold herself up as her body grew heavy.
This is what she got for letting herself relax- for getting distracted. As the toxin spread, her body felt pinned to the floor by an invisible force, all muscle robbed of strength. Her face landed cheek-side down, jostling her mask and pinching the skin. She found herself parallel to Myssa, and Ciaran locked hidden gaze to open. The pallid face tilted her direction, and stared with wide eyes, mouth moving as if attempting to speak.
Ciaran thought she looked ridiculous, like a beached trout. The eyes flicked to stare somewhere behind her, and she heard the approach of boots and the scuff of leather.
She really should've killed him.