Distant Worlds Volume 1 Page 24

  It was too dark to see anything beyond the archway until they lit several torches to illuminate the interior of the strange tower. Lucien stepped inside, with the others only a few paces behind him.

  They entered an empty room that was as large as the tower’s exterior circumference and the walls were made of the same greenish-black stone. In the center was a large circular opening in the floor that had once been sealed off but was now torn open to reveal steps that disappeared into the darkness below. Intense heat welled up through the shattered barricade and the air reeked of decay.

  Narim signaled Lucien to continue, and they followed him down the steep, spiraling stairwell. After a descent of several hundred feet the stairs ended in a large chamber that housed two massive doors of black iron, cracked open just wide enough for a large man to slip past. A dull green light of indeterminate origin leaked through the opening, causing the antechamber they stood in to glow faintly.

  One by one, they slipped through the doors and beheld the terrible sight beyond them. They stood inside an immense subterranean cavern and in its center rested a monstrous palace even more hideous than the tower hundreds of feet above. Its walls cascaded upwards at strange angles and its twisting, spiraling parapets were mockeries of human architecture. The structure appeared to have been molded into its current form from a single, massive piece of glassy stone. A towering inferno of green flame roared up from the center of the grotesque palace and reached to the cavern ceiling far above.

  “There it is!” Narim said, nearly overwhelmed with excitement.

  “Gods,” Ilesha whispered behind him, her voice filled with a mixture of awe, fear, and, perhaps, love.

  “Keep moving,” Narim said. “If our fortune holds, the gates will not be sealed.”

  When they reached the entrance of the palace they found a hole through one of the heavy iron doors that was large enough to walk through.

  “Inside,” Narim said.

  Lucien stepped through the hole and vanished. The darkness swallowed the light of his torch along with the hunter and left everyone staring into the void.

  “Lucien?” Serafima said.

  There was no answer, not even an echo. It was as if the black air had absorbed her very breath into its being. She looked back to Narim, her face graver than he had ever known it to be.

  “We follow,” he said.

  “Like hell!” a sell-sword shouted. Some of his companions nodded their heads and started backing away from the door.

  “No payment’s worth this,” said another.

  “Very well then!” Narim said. “Turn back if you wish, penniless and without honor.”

  “What good is a bag of coins to a dead man, eh?”

  “Aye! I’m going back! Who’s coming with me?”

  Several more mercenaries walked away from the group until only two remained with Narim, Ilesha, and Serafima.

  Narim scowled at the traitors for a moment and then turned to Serafima.

  “You choose to remain, eh?”

  “Do you think me so without honor that I would abandon a companion in this wicked place?”

  “Truly, I am touched by your devotion,” Narim said, though he knew she wasn’t speaking of him.

  Serafima ignored his words. Gripping her broadsword in one hand and a torch in the other, she disappeared through the gash in the iron door.

  Ilesha stepped forward and took Narim’s hand.

  “Come, then,” she said. “Let us plunge into the abyss together.”

  Narim smiled as they slipped inside the shadows, his mind alive with all manner of possibilities lain out before him.

  The inky darkness beyond the palace doors was more than a simple byproduct of the absence of light. It possessed a physical substance and a dim tinge of awareness that probed dumbly at the strange creatures that stepped into it. The shadows oozed over their bodies like thick tar and pulled them eagerly into its depths. Its meager intellect assailed their minds, desperately seeking some sign or command to obey. But the desires of the shadow went unnoticed, for the strangers wrapped in its dark embrace did not possess the capacity to detect them. Frustrated, the living darkness flung them away as an angry child might toss aside a broken toy, without care for where they might come to rest so long as it was assured a return to the peaceful slumber it had known for so many centuries.

  Serafima did not know how long she was enveloped by the foul shadows of the palace before they vomited her onto the smooth stone floor. She coughed, spitting out the thick, black clumps of darkness that had begun to seep into her lungs. Though she felt as if she had nearly drown, her skin and hair were dry; the only sign of her suffocation being the acrid, shadow-born substance that now slithered back to the looming mass of darkness behind her and the extinguished torch she held in her hand.

  The room she had been thrust into was not large, but its high ceilings made it feel relatively spacious. It was dimly lit by glowing gems imbedded along the walls at regular intervals and the ceiling towered high above her. Strangely shaped furniture lay strewn about the room; strange because it did not appear to be made for human use. Each piece had too many legs and the seats was shaped in such a way that no man could have sat upon them comfortably. The sickly light of the gems lent an unwholesome appearance to the already alien décor of the room.

  Serafima stepped around the scattered furniture, careful not to disturb it in any way. The cold stone beneath her feet shuddered slightly with every step she took and Serafima could not help but wonder if the dark souls of the palace’s builders had become trapped within its walls, forever imprisoned by the malevolent will of their foul creation. That the grim palace itself was alive in some way, Serafima had little doubt. The stone sensed her movements, the shadows watched her, and the stale air tasted the sweat upon her skin.

  There was no sign of Lucien, who should have emerged from the darkness only a few moments before her, nor of Narim, who should have been right behind her. After allowing some time to pass, she decided that no one would be stepping through the black void. It was likely, she thought, that they were each standing in a dimly lit room somewhere inside the palace.

  Serafima stepped out of the dim room and onto a balcony that overlooked the vast interior of the palace. The mere sight of the chaotic structure stung her eyes and forced her to turn away until her mind adjusted to the madness that sprawled out before her. There was no discernable pattern or design to the staircases, walls, balconies, doors, and halls of the palace; they twisted, turned, and sprang forth from the floors and ceilings as if they were living things with no regard for order or logic. Countless glowing gems identical to those in the room behind her lined the walls, floors, and ceilings of the palace. It was a tangled maze of ornate stone that assailed her senses with fury, a reminder that human eyes were never intended to fell upon such insane configurations of shapes and angles.

  She wandered through the labyrinthine corridors and crooked stairways of the ancient, deranged palace for nearly an hour before she found a sign of her companions. The bloody corpse of a humanoid creature that was equal parts ape and salamander lay splayed across the stone floor before her, its hideous, rubbery body riddled with arrows from Lucien’s bow. Leading away from the beast was a trail of blood, still wet upon the cold, smooth stone.

  Serafima followed the blood through the twisted tangles of hallways until she found Lucien sitting on the stone floor, his back to the wall. He had torn off a strip of his shirt and was using it to bind a wound on his left arm.

  “Lucien?”

  The hunter started at the sound of her voice, for her approach had been too quiet for even his sensitive ears to detect.

  “Serafima!”

  “How badly are you hurt?” she asked.

  “It isn’t too bad, but if I had been any slower that damned thing back there might have taken my arm off.”

  “Any sign of the others?”

  “Nothing. You’re the first I’ve seen.”

  Serafima nodde
d.

  “We should keep moving,” she said.

  Together they climbed higher through the spiraling corridors of the palace. Despite their occasional bouts of disorientation they were certain they were moving upward and eventually climbed onto a wide platform that had nothing but a ceiling of solid stone above it. A narrow doorway stood on the far end of the room. It appeared to be the only exit other than the way they had come.

  Serafima spotted a pair of bodies that lay on the floor several feet from them and immediately recognized the two mercenaries who had not abandoned them at the gates of the palace. She and Lucien approached the prone figures warily, fearful that they might encounter more of the strange salamander creatures that dwelled there lurking in the shadows.

  But as they drew closer it became clear that they had met a far more conventional fate. The hilt of a dagger protruded from the back of one mercenary and the other’s throat had been slit. Serafima reached down and pulled the dagger out, then held it out to Lucien. There was no mistaking the distinctively curved, jagged blade. It belonged to Narim.

  “That bastard! He’s been playing us for fools all along!”

  “These two were fools to trust him,” Serafima said.

  “Look, here,” Lucien said, pointing out a trail of smeared blood that led across the floor toward the doorway at the far end of the room. “Neither of them had a chance to draw their blades, so whose blood could this be?”

  Serafima remembered that the repugnant creature Lucien killed had shed blood that was thick and black like tar. If the blood did not belong to Narim or the mercenaries, there was only one other possibility.

  “The witch.”

  “Ilesha!” Lucien said. “Narim probably stabbed her before he went for the sell-swords then left her for dead. After he was gone she must have crawled after him, maybe to try to put some manner of curse or hex on him before she bled out.”

  Serafima nodded, but she had her doubts. It seemed unlikely to her that a killer as precise as Narim would fail to land a lethal strike on an unsuspecting and unprotected woman. And even if he had, why would he leave his dagger behind?

  Before Serafima could say anything, Lucien bolted off towards the doorway, following the trail of blood.

  “Come on!” he said. “We’ve got to help her!”

  Serafima followed, but she wasn’t so sure that letting the witch bleed to death was a bad idea. Duplicitous men like Narim she could at least predict if not fully understand, but there was no way to anticipate the actions of someone like Ilesha, for who could hope to imagine what deviant urges drove those who delved into the black arts of sorcery?

  The narrow doorway led outside to the roof of the sunken palace. There they found the source of the green flame they had seen outside the palace. The flames leapt up from a huge alter that was surrounded by alien monuments of stone. Serafima and Lucien stepped outside and followed the smeared blood towards the burning alter.

  Remarkably, the tower of flame gave off little heat. They passed under the outer ring of stone monuments and when examined up close they appeared to be some manner of chairs or thrones, for they resembled the strange furniture Serafima had seen upon entering the palace. The burning alter itself was massive, easily as big as any of the stone houses in the ruined town far above them. A series of disturbingly shaped runes adorned the sides of the immense block of stone.

  They gave the burning alter a wide berth and circled around to its other side and immediately stopped when they saw what was hidden there. Amidst the queer sculptures of stone surrounding the flame stood a single chair made of metal. It was ornate, with numerous jewels studding its high back and arms, and its familiar shape indicated that it was made for something that was at least humanoid. Two bodies were heaped near the feet of the chair. One of them was covered in dust and its limbs were bent at strange angles. The other Serafima immediately recognized as Narim, even though he lay face down on the cold stone floor. He still wore his black cloak, but it was covered with blood. The trail of blood they had followed ranged all over the area and it was impossible to discern where it ended and Narim’s began or if the two were not one and the same.

  As they closed in on his motionless form, Serafima succumbed to curiosity and stooped down to examine the other body that lay at the base of the chair. Closer inspection revealed why it appeared so strange from a distance. It looked like the foul creature Lucien had slain, but this one had been dead so long that it little more than a dry husk of brittle bone and leathery skin. A crown of thin iron rods rested upon its skull and crude jewelry adorned its body. Curiously, the withered skin of its left hand had been ripped away from the bone and was crumbled in a pile next to it.

  Serafima turned her attention back to Narim.

  “Is he alive?” Lucien asked.

  “He’s still breathing.” She reached down and turned him over onto his back and her eyes widened.

  Narim’s body was covered with cuts and stab wounds, his clothing soaked through with blood. His face was battered, bruised, and split open in places. But his most grievous wound was his left arm, which had been severed at the elbow. Serafima examined the stump closely and became puzzled.

  “There is no blood from this wound. It looks like it was burned off. But what could have…”

  Narim’s remaining hand suddenly shot forward and grasped Serafima by the wrist. His eyes were almost swelled shut, but he forced them open to fix his familiar harsh stare upon her.

  “C…couldn’t stop her…the witch planned it all…right from the start…” Narim said.

  Serafima pried Narim’s hand from her wrist and pulled him up to a sitting position, his back leaned against the metal chair.

  “Talk,” she said.

  “It…happened so fast,” Narim said. “Ilesha…she caught me by surprise…took my dagger…stabbed me and the others. I…dragged myself out here…tried to stop her…too late…she found it.” Narim gestured to the withered creature nearby.

  “Found what?” Lucien asked. “This dried out corpse?”

  “Not the body, you fool! It was what the… damned thing… wore! A bracer… of the… purest gold… a set of gemstones… flawless… set within it. Worth… enough to buy your… own kingdom… priceless… perfect… so perfect…”

  Narim gurgled and leaned forward to vomit blood into his lap.

  “Keep talking,” Serafima said.

  “…made by the things…they built it…built it all! She knows! She knows!” Narim trailed off as his body shuddered. Serafima tried to shake him back to his senses.

  “Knows what, damn you?”

  “… gods be cursed… she knows… claws… fire… dark… pain… coming…,” he said, clutching feebly at his charred stump of an arm.

  And then Narim, the legendary thief of Kurn, died.

  Serafima’s attempt to make sense of the dying man’s last, broken words was cut short when her keen ears picked up a sound behind them. It was the sound of thin, raspy breathing and the scraping of talons upon the smooth stone floor. She looked back and at first thought her eyes deceived her, for it appeared that the shadows on the palace roof were churning like boiling water and swelling towards them. But her vision quickly adjusted and she recognized the dark writhing figures shambling out of the darkness. The horrible forms belonged to the man beasts of the palace, and there were dozens of them.

  “Lucien!” Serafima jumped to her feet and readied her broadsword. The creatures spewed forth a chorus of shrieks and charged forward in a mass of fangs and claws.

  There was no time for words as the onslaught descended upon them. A few of the monsters paused long enough to rip Narim’s body to pieces. Lucien drew his curved saber and slashed desperately as the sea of teeth and talons enveloped them. Serafima dove into the massed ranks of creatures, her heavy broadsword hacking through limbs and splitting skulls with each mighty stroke.

  Lucien tried to dart around his assailants, but there was little room for maneuvering and he resorted to sw
inging blindly at the foul man-things surrounding him. Serafima managed to hold the monsters at bay with crushing blows from her sword as she gave herself over to frenzy. Her feral heart pounded and she bellowed in the throes of her battle lust.

  But their courage was of little use, for even as they slew the creatures before them more of the accursed things poured out of the shadows. Serafima’s mind was not so clouded with rage that she could not see that their situation was grim. Her mighty limbs would soon tire and her reactions would eventually slow, and when that happened they would be overwhelmed and torn apart. The horde of creatures had nearly surrounded them and it was impossible to reach the door that led back inside the palace.

  Serafima could see no hope of escape, but just as she was about to accept the inevitability of death, a slim gap opened in the ranks of the mob and it revealed one of the twisting palace towers that rose just beyond the edge of the roof.

  She grasped Lucien’s arm and dragged him through the swarming horde of claws towards the tower. The creatures whirled as one and gave chase, trampling over one another in the process and screeching as their prey fled.

  “Serafima, what are…?”

  “That tower!” She pointed to the twisting spire ahead of them. “We can make it!”

  “Are you mad?”

  Serafima didn’t answer, for as they approached the ledge she saw that she had misjudged the tower’s distance from the rooftop. But even if she could have stopped short of the edge, she still would have chanced the jump. A likely death, she thought, was favorable to a certain one. Without hesitation, they flung themselves off the roof.

  She immediately realized that their leaps would not carry them across the chasm, but before she had the opportunity to curse her decision, their feet struck something and they landed awkwardly a few feet below the palace roof. Their hands lashed out for support and they steadied themselves on the smooth, stone surface beneath them. Serafima looked down to find they had landed on a lower section of the same twisting tower they had intended to reach. It snaked up from the ground like a crooked tree, twisting and turning so drastically in some places that it nearly doubled back on itself.