Alright, my awesome readers. This was meant to be a sort of reverse birthday present for all of you seeing as how yesterday was my birthday, but it wasn't finished yet yesterday. Thankfully I had a little bit of time to sit down and write the rest of it this morning. I'll be working and preparing from now through Christmas, so there probably won't be another chapter up until after then. I wish you all so many Happy Holidays and if I don't have another chapter up by then, I will see you all in the New Year. Much love and many hugs to you all. ^^

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Darksiders universe or anything/anyone featured in Darksiders II. The game and universe belong to the original developer/creator of the series. The awesome picture of Eleyna was made by 'The phantom's girl' on the Dark Fairy creator on the Azalea's Dolls website.

Chapter Two: The Cauldron

The heat as Death entered the old Temple was stifling, and he didn't even bother to fathom how the Makers had endured such conditions when they built this place. Pushing a switch that opened the grate over the door ahead, Death moved into an open room. Immediately he could see why such a place would be called a cauldron; hanging from the ceiling was a large, thick and heavy chain that reached over a large, multilayered metallic covering on the floor, like the lid of a cauldron or pot. He could see two heavy metallic weights suspended above.

His exploration of this room was interrupted as he heard the stone constructs burst forth from the ground. He pulled the scythes from his sides and leapt into the fray. When all that was left was the stone remnants on the floor, his eye caught the eerie green glow in the corner opposite. Moving closer proved the source to be a sort of spiky black and green plant. He had seen these of a different sort before, so he knew that if attached to something, they would alight and explode in a moment's notice. Taking one, he threw it towards the switch up on the wall, cut off from him by a hole in the floor- fortified in its impassibility by a pool of lava below. The resulting explosion pushed the lever in and the grate opened for Death.

After pushing his way through the door, he noted two things- one was the construct rushing toward him, which he took care of with a few swipes of his scythe. The second was a strange spectral lock over the door to his left, which he regarded with narrowed eyes. "Where there is a lock, a key is never too far." he noted. Instead, he went through the door ahead, into a cavernous room cut off by streams of lava flowing. Death veered to the left, his initial leap onto the wall graduating to a quick and steady climb until he reached the ledge and traversed its length. Leaning back, he leaped onto the solid ground and then over the gap in the floor in order to turn around the corner. In the next fragment of this room, he found another switch, although it was out of reach- as was the bomb he could use to activate it.

Gazing around granted him knowledge of another ledge high up. Again he scaled the wall, pausing on the ledge for only a moment and then passing it and leaping to the broken beam behind him. From there, he adjusted his height and then flipped up onto the first of the horizontal beams just beyond that. From there he followed the ledges to a section of wall covered in vines. Climbing down, he pulled the bomb from its place and threw it at the lever across the way. Leaping down, he pushed the doors open with his spectral hands.

The hall he entered was quite long and very quiet, which edged Death into keeping his hands near the handles of his scythes. He was right to have, for at that moment he heard the sound of grates rising up out of the door ahead. With that, he found himself surrounded by the constructs once more. They charged him, but they were not nearly fast enough to catch him, as he sensed an opening and leapt out of the confining circle before turning to sink his blade into the stone. Sensing an opportunity to attack, one of the enemies ran at him from the side; poor planning on its part, as Death leaned to the side and coiled up his leg. The resounding kick sent the creature flying- straight into the pit of lava left forgotten in the corner. With another jab from the knee, Death left another sprawled on the floor and he shifted quickly to merge his scythe together before bringing the pointed end of the shaft down on the core stone, where the black matter seemed to come from. The construct stopped struggling after mere seconds.

The others were dispatched with reasonable haste, a few managing a bruising hit on him- not that Death's pale skin and lack of blood flow would allow such things to be seen. He heaved a sigh of fatigue when the door finally opened, but he trudged through.

Taking in very little of this short hallway, Death turned to find a staircase leading up to an open area, but it was the sounds of fighting that caused him to reach for his scythe handles once more. Slowly did he proceed up the stairs so as not to attract attention to himself. With that done, he noted what seemed to be a territorial fight between the constructs and a very large, four-legged demon that had a nasty-looking club for a tail. He waited until the number of the constructs dwindled down to merely a few before moving in. The demon, noting another possible threat, forwent the constructs for this larger prey. He managed to jump back from a potentially damaging strike before he moved in with a swiftness that matched his foe's. After a few good slashes, Death moved back, this time allowing one of the constructs to come between him and the demon. The stone creature was torn apart in moments and then the demon went back to attempting to slash at him. He dodged a few of the swipes and for the rest he parried with similar swipes of his scythes. It was finished, he knew, when the creature fell to its side.

In a small alcove across the way from whence he had come he found a chest. When his spectral arms broke it apart, they pulled out and presented to him a rather large key. Dust flew overhead back the way they came. Clearly the featherbrained creature was not at all fond of being here in this heat. Death did not waste any time, either. From the view he had of the broken room he had traversed but moments ago, he dashed along the wall, back to that middle part. When he approached the first part once more, he found that there was a small, caved in bridge just below that led back to the door. After jumping down, he followed the gentle slope and retreated from the room. When he found the room with the spectral lock, he had his spectral arms appear with the key in their bony hands and plunge the instrument between the jaw-like casings of the lock. With a simple twist, the lock was gone.

In this next room, he was met by a wide bowl-like cavity in the middle of the floor, covered in angular, blue-glowing runes. He easily concluded that the giant orb of black with similar angular markings of that same glowing blue was meant to go into the cavity and he gently rolled and then pushed it into said cavity. The runes following the cavity lit up one by one in a path that led to the farther wall. Further up on that same wall, mechanics manipulated a loose section of the wall to turn so that facing him was a stump facing out from the wall. Death approached and climbed up the wall, moving to the left until a wall section covered in vines allowed him to pull himself up to the higher level.

The short passageway he followed brought him back to the room with the giant cauldron, across the way from where he had been before he had passed through the door. He moved on as soon as he spotted a ledge he could climb to, pushing himself up with the assistance of a wall post. After climbing around and down with the added assistance of a section of wall covered in vines, he pushed on through a small hole in the wall. Seeing the switch there, he pressed it and the grated doorway to his right was cleared with a few simple turnings of gears.

He sauntered down the hallway, only to find another spectral lock over the door ahead, behind two constructs. The creatures had spotted him and rushed up the stairs with hammers flailing, their footsteps like crashes against the stone. Death moved before they could advance the steps to where he was and crumbled to the stone now as nothing more than stone fragments.

Death entered into a courtyard that came into full view of the mountain and thus had the fiery projectiles dotting it constantly. What it also contained were constructs that rose to the challenge. He met with them one at a time, moving out of the way at one moment so that the construct he was currently facing would be hit by a flying projectile of fire from the mountain. When the courtyard was cleared, he took in his surroundings- from the chest behind the grate to the multiple bowl-like cavities dotted into the ground. Following the trails allowed Death an insight as to what to do. First, he searched around the courtyard until he found a shadowy bomb and he cast it at the Corruption blocking him from one of the stone spheres. Rather than bring it to the closest basin when it was freed, instead he pushed it across the way, to where another sphere was blocked by a grate. After settling the first sphere into the basin, he took the freed sphere and pushed it toward one of the basins at the side of the main grate. Retrieving another shadow bomb, Death threw it at the first sphere. The reacting explosion was just the push that brought it out. He then maneuvered it across the courtyard and right into the second basin, thus completely opening the grate. As with the last time the spectral hands pulled from the chest another large key.

After returning and opening the spectral lock, Death came across a room where another set of heavy chains plunged from the ceiling into the lake of lava below. Upon seeing a switch, Death pushed it in. From the infernally hot depths came what looked like a metal grating over a tall crucible. After a mere second, he realized that this position would not hold. Quickly, he rushed to the ledge on his right and climbed his way over to the small outcropping of wall closest to the ledges on the crucible. As he grabbed onto the crude ledge, he ignored the scalding heat of the surface, especially as he heard a loud click. He moved around the circumference of the apparatus and leapt to safety on the other side. He heard another metallic click, followed by another and another, growing faster and faster until finally the crucible and the metallic grating above it plunged back into the depths of the magma. Death continued into what seemed to be a deep well and made his ascent. When he pulled himself up once more, he found a gap that lead down into the chamber below, where he had just come from; he finally understood then what the metal grating was for. Taking a shadowy bomb from the strange-looking 'plant' that grew at his left, he tossed it at the switch he saw across the room, causing the crucible to rise once more and Death crossed the walkway.

Upon ascending the steps and crossing the wide room, Death stopped as he heard grating go up behind him. This was followed by a rumbling radiating from a far wall. His fingers inched closer to the handles of his scythes as the rumbling grew more violent. A sound rang in his ears that sounded like metal grinding on stone and Death then realized that something was trying to break through.

And break through it did- a Construct unlike anything Death had ever seen before, bigger and quite angry looking, with a mean piece of morning-star like equipment at the end of its left hand. Sword handles protruded like spikes from its back. Upon seeing him, it brought the revolving left hand down, allowing the spikes to ground against the stone of the floor in challenge. Death pulled his scythes free and rushed in. The large construct swiped at him, only missing by a hair's width as he dodged. This is what the enemy hoped for, however and when he was at a more than vulnerable position, the construct dug its left 'hand' into Death's side. The Horseman ignored the excruciating pain- as he usually did and kicked himself up, ready to go again.

All that could be heard about the room were the metallic clashes as scythe blades clashed with spikes. From underneath, the construct attempted to uppercut Death with the spinning morning star attached to its arm. It didn't relent, however, even as he moved away and the Horseman found himself relentlessly chased by the construct. It wasn't until it hit the wall after Death took a sharp turn away that it stopped. From there he combined his half-scythes and threw the whole weapon, twisting it in midair in a way that resembled a deadly spinning disk. The construct slumped over then as if weakened. Death then took his chance and attacked with no quarter. The construct did not stir- did not even flinch, and this is what caused him to stop.

With a violent explosion, he was sent back, jarred but otherwise no worse for the wear. He rapidly recovered, just enough as to where he was able to block another possible blow from the spinning morning star and with all of his strength push it back angrily. Having had enough of this thing already, he moved in with all of the skill and grace as he possessed, being the original assassin. At the very last second, his visage was that of another- a much more frightening and gruesome being, hooded and skinless in form. From the back of its raggedy hood protruded skeletal, bat-like wings and in the bony hands it held an enormous jagged scythe, sharpened to reap life from every being on this plain should its wielder so choose.

The construct reached forward with its left arm, but this new creature was ever quicker, blocking such a blow with the gargantuan blade of its chosen weapon. After a moment, the spikes caught, ceasing the rotation of the morning star. The two stood- or in the case of one, floated- at a standstill for but a second before the dark creature shoved the spiked hand to the side and then swung. What this enemy failed to realize was that the dark creature had more of a range with the swung weapon and had left a great opening at its back. Before it could react, the blade broke through the stone of it chest. Such a blow rendered it to its rocky knees. The creature of the black depths struck once more- twice more and the great construct was no more. In a maelstrom of dark magic, the creature returned to the form of the Horseman Death. He felt no pain as a consequence of the battle save for a little stiffness. That was easily cracked out of his bones and muscles and he took off through the door ahead.

After traversing a long hallway- and finding a hammer with which he could sense some possessive potential- he opened the door at the end and found himself back in the cavernous first room once more. Before him was a great dais on which a lever stood, facing parallel to the ground rather than perpendicular to it. Noting how the floor beneath radiated from this particular lever, he concluded that it had to be turned. After grasping and attempting to turn it clockwise, only to find it wouldn't budge, he pushed forward, turning the lever in a counterclockwise manner. As he did so, he could hear the metallic grinding and groaning of chains rusted beyond repair; over his shoulder, he noted that the giant weights that had formerly hung overhead were now touching the floor and with that, he pulled away. As he did, the entire temple seemed to rumble to life.

Death watched then as the giant 'lid' to the cauldron in the floor was lifted and as the fiery glow called the 'Fire of the Mountain' rose from its depths, following a crude, rectangular pipeline that led back west, toward the village. He noted the grate that had lifted from over the door behind him and he followed the descending staircase beyond it. This, in turn, led him down to the door back out into the open. With one final spectral push, Death forced the doors open and forced himself back into the open. Crossing the drawbridge, he walked back to the area where Karn was still waiting for him.

"The mountain has a voice!" the young Maker exclaimed. "How did you... No, no it doesn't matter. You have done what we, what I... failed to do. You must take the good news to Alya as soon as you can." There was something amusing in Death's eyes about being the bringer of good news for a change. Yet something within his memory caused him to look back at Karn.

"There is an urchin in your wood whom is under the impression that she protects the forest." he noted.

"Oh, you must mean Eleyna." the larger being pointed out after a moment. "Strange that ye call her 'urchin', though. Aye, she protects these forests, as Eidard bade her, but she's a gentle soul."

Death almost snorted in derision. "Her throwing arm says otherwise." he muttered.

"Oh," began Karn knowingly. "Ye did somethin' to her trees?"

"I needed a way across. A tree provided it for me." Death replied simply.

"Then that would serve ye right. Eleyna cares for every tree in the forest. She told me once that the trees speak to her."

"Speak to her?" the Horseman echoed. "Impossible. Not even a druid should have that power." To this, Karn barked out a laugh.

"If ye only knew, Horseman." At this, Death had no more patience for the young Maker and marched away, summoning Despair when he felt he was far enough away. There was no sign of luminescent eyes watching him between the trees, no flicker of that red hair. Pulling himself from that thought, he pushed ahead, through the forest.

He arrived at the village and did as Karn had suggested, noting that at the left side of the high temple, there was now the liquid fire flowing down like a waterfall. The resulting stream it made the lower rim around the atrium of Alya's forge alight with warm light. When he approached the tiny forge, Alya began to heartily laugh in childish delight. "Horseman!" she barked upon seeing him. "The Fire of the Mountain flows again!"

"Yes. Freed by my hand... and Karn's."

"Karn?" Alya repeated incredulously. "That pup?! He hasn't a clue!" Her incredulity faded and was ultimately replaced by great joy. "And yet... the forge burns once more. You know what awaits you rider. To finish this, you must restore the tears."

"I'm not your errand boy, maker." Death replied testily.

"Aye, but our fates are now yoked. Help us, and we will help you. In the meantime, take this... it might be of use." With that, she reached behind her and pulled out a rather large pistol. Dusting it off and giving the cylinder a good spin, she then held it out in offering towards the Horseman. Death's eyes widened as he took it.

"I know this pistol..." he murmured. "It belongs to my brother, Strife. How came it here?" he demanded with narrowed eyes. Alya refused to say, but instead invited him to look at their wares. He, however, was more interested in finishing the job. "You said there were two things that powered your forge, fire and tears."

"Yes," affirmed Alya, "fire to wake the earth and tears to calm it- both gifts of the Stonefather."

"Then fire will not be enough." he noted.

"Nay. We require both."

"Where might I find the Tears of the Mountain?" he asked.

"To the west, past the Fjord and into the Drenchfort." she replied. "You'll find the tears within. Ask Eidard to help you find a way into the Drenchfort."

"I cannot simply walk in?" he asked.

"Nay." she said simply. "We gave no quarter in attempting to make sure Corruption did not make its way out... and that fools like Karn did not venture in. Eidard knows better than any the best way into the Drenchfort."

With a very brief nod, Death retraced his steps, finding the maker Elder close by the enormous door to the forge.

"You seek an audience with me, Horseman?" he greeted sagely.

"I am told you know the best way into the Drenchfort." Death replied.

"The only way." the Elder corrected. "Seek out Eleyna. It is she who can provide you with a path within."

"You cannot be serious." Death deadpanned.

"Is there a problem?" asked Eidard calmly.

"The child threw a rock at my head for cutting down a tree; you tell me."

Eidard was silent for but a moment. "Many of us have taken to refraining from cutting down the trees because it greatly offends her."

"You speak as if the child is a goddess."

"Not so, Horseman, but Eleyna is powerful, and if you are to restore the Tears, you will need her help."

"What can you tell me of Eleyna?"

"As I said, powerful, nearly as stubborn as any Maker. She takes to the company of the trees and the animals better than other people."

"What is she?" Death pried.

"We know not." Eidard replied. "She came to this plain as a small child; when the Makers grew suspicious of her, she fled to the forest and kept herself there, caring for the flora and fauna."

"So you took pity on something you did not understand." Death concluded.

"I was young in age myself when I found her as a small child, Horseman. She is maybe but a few centuries younger than I." Death's eyes marginally widened at this knowledge. "She has attempted to care for our forests with her best efforts, but I fear that soon that may still prove in vain."

"Where can I find Eleyna?" the Horseman asked.

"Head back east, to Baneswood. Take the path to the northeast, through the thicket of trees. Deep within there is where you will find Eleyna's home. You will know it when you find it."

With these instructions- and a nearly inaudible groan under his breath, Death took off, back through the gate.

So that is going to be a very tense reunion... Anyways readers, as I said before, many warm holiday greetings and hugs and if you don't hear from me beforehand, Happy New Year!