* * *
The trip deeper into Losz was uneventful, though the weather stayed miserable well into the next day as a cold, driving rain beat itself on them. Ignoring Wrelk completely, Cor and Thyss took to bedding down together, as much to share her warmth as any other reason. Even after the rain stopped, the air kept its chill as winter was approaching, and Cor wondered somewhat if there would be early snows this season. They had seen a few other travelers, but always in the distance, and none of them ever turned to intercept the trio, paying mind to their own business. While the countryside itself was very similar to Aquis, Cor noticed that Losz clearly lacked the large number of villages and independent farms found in the Shining West, doubtless due to the empire’s social structure.
Starting the third morning, they eased their pace somewhat, Wrelk declaring that they weren’t far from the crater and that it would be better to allow the horses a slower pace now. There would be nothing safe for them to eat or drink within several miles of the crater, and it would be best to conserve their energy. The walking pace tore at Cor’s patience; the less miles between himself and their destination, the harder he felt the unseen force pull at his blood. He felt like a piece of iron affected by a massive lodestone, and it made him extremely excitable.
Cor estimated that they had crossed nearly two hundred miles since leaving Taraq’nok’s castle, and the landscape had changed somewhat. The slightly rolling hills and prairies with tall grass and wild fruit trees had given way to scraggly shrubs, weeds and crabgrass. The very ground itself seemed less lush, harder and drier, the closer they traveled to the meteor. It was shortly before noon when they reached a point where Wrelk would go no further.
“The meteor is about two miles that way,” he said, pointing slightly north of east. “I and the horses will stay here. I will not risk them or myself any further on this errand.”
Cor shrugged and dismounted his horse, giving instructions for Wrelk to wait two days; if he didn’t come back by then, he was not going to. He checked his gear, also making certain he had an ample supply of fresh water and some dried meat. Cor pet Kelli’s forehead and fed her a sugar cube before turning to leave; he found Thyss standing impatiently in front of him.
“You are coming, then?” he asked her.
“I am certainly not staying here with him for two days,” she answered, lifting her chin towards Wrelk.
Cor began walking at a quick pace in the direction indicated, and Thyss fell into step next to him. They had not even covered a mile when most of the foliage had disappeared; there were no trees or shrubs of any kind, and the grass had given way to intertwined vine-like weeds and moss. Cor had not seen any signs of animals at all since the previous day, and he doubted Taraq’nok’s claims of unnatural creatures. They ventured up a sloping incline, which seemed to have a vague familiarity to Cor, and stopped upon reaching the top.
Cor removed his helm and dropped it on the ground to get a more thorough view of the landscape that lay before them, feeling a very complete sense that he had been before, but at a different point in time. They stood looking down a wide track that was completely devoid of any plant life at all. Weather had changed it substantially over nearly three thousand years, but Cor could still make out a slight depression nearly a mile wide that narrowed at the far end of the track as it made its way deeper into the ground. It stopped quite suddenly in a deep crater.
“Where do we go from here?” Thyss asked.
“I’m not sure,” Cor said, surveying the land. “I was here once before, and I climbed a grassy hill to see this same stretch of land, but it was more of a trench with upturned dirt and small trees that were on fire. When I went back down the hill, I was in the midst of the ruins, and I fell into the catacombs on accident.”
“I saw no ruins before we came up this hill. I would not think they would disappear even after three thousand years.” Thyss said.
“No,” he said, squatting down on his haunches, “something is not right. I don’t think we are in the exact spot that I stood in the dream.”
Cor stood up and began walking south along the hilltop, which he realized was a sort of ridgeline. As he walked, he kept his eyes on the ancient trench dug by the meteor, watching for when his perspective matched what he recalled from the first dream nearly ten years ago. Thyss simply stood, watched and waited. Cor’s foot suddenly hit something with a hard thud, and he sprawled face first to the ground, barely throwing his hands up in time to catch himself. He was uninjured physically, though he looked sheepishly at the hard mound he had apparently tripped over. Cor looked up to see Thyss jogging over to him slowly; he had walked several hundred feet without realizing it. He sat up and began scraping away hard packed dirt, weeds and moss to find a large rectangular gray stone, well weathered and half buried in the ground.
“This came from the tower,” Cor said, looking up at Thyss. “The entire building was made of stone blocks just like this one. It must be nearby.”
“Then let’s find it quickly. This place is beginning to unnerve me, and try watching where you walk from now on.”
Cor closed his eyes and attempted to clear his mind, focusing on the sensation that had been building in his veins and arteries for days, if not months. He was right on top of it; of this, he had no doubt, but he just couldn’t seem to find the place. He stood up and again surveyed where the meteor impacted, and then he turned his back to it looking west. The slope back down the hill was less smooth here, as if the weeds and moss had overgrown numerous objects. Cor’s gaze followed down the slope, and at the bottom he saw a tangled mess of weeds and scraggly growth that seemed to be obscuring shapes he could not clearly make out.
“This is it,” he said and immediately started down the hill.
“How did we not see it before?” Thyss asked, and he heard her start down the hill behind him.
Cor didn’t answer the question; he didn’t actually know, but the answer became apparent the further down the hill they went. The site was obscured from view on all sides by other hills, and one would likely only see it if standing directly above it. The slope was somewhat treacherous, as it was a bit steeper than the path up had been, and the plant growth here was comprised of short tangled weeds that threatened to trip those who made a careless step.
Cor stopped when he reached the bottom of the hill, looking around carefully and trying to envision the ruins he saw in his dream. He could just barely see the outlines of crumbled walls and piles of rubble under the foliage. Cor did not move into the ruin; he remembered crashing through some kind of wood planking, perhaps a trap door, and this time he had no mattress to break his fall. He walked to the north side of the ruin, looking for the remains of a stone spiral stair, and he found a large pile of weather beaten rubble, grown over with moss. Seeing no other likely options, Cor asked Thyss to stand next to it, as he walked back to his starting point and took a circuitous route to the south side of the ruin. After a few minutes, he found the remains of three stone steps; while they were only two feet high and covered in weeds, Cor was certain he’d found the second staircase.
“The entrance into the catacombs should be right between us,” Cor shouted; it was partially from excitement, but also because the wind seemed to whip coldly through this slight depression.
They walked towards each other and closed the distance quickly at first; as they neared each other, they walked more slowly and watched the ground intently for any sign of the entrance. They stopped nearly ten feet away from each other, and Cor drew Soulmourn. He moved slowly towards Thyss, thrusting the sword into the ground every few inches. He had gone several feet when the sword met no resistance, passing right through the weeds without striking anything solid. If Cor hadn’t been looking for exactly such an effect, he likely would have lost his balance. He sheathed his sword, and the pair dropped to their hands and knees, clearing away the weeds with small knives until they had defined a mouth that was roughly four feet sq
uare. The noon sunlight shined down into a room below, showing a dust caked floor less than twenty feet below them.
“I fell through some sort of trap door. It must have rotted away hundreds of years ago,” Cor reasoned.
Thyss found a small piece of wall nearby that was still mortared together and kicked at its foundation several times. Satisfied that it was solid, she uncoiled a rope that she tied around the hunk of masonry and then threw it down into the open maw. Cor felt the rope for a moment and looked at Thyss doubtfully. It was made of the same black silk as her clothing with slivers of silver running through its threads.
“Are you sure this will hold me?” he asked, eyeing the silk rope.
“Would you like to again try ripping the clothes from my body?” she asked by way of reply, laughing deeply at the look he gave her.
Cor really had no idea what he was doing, and he was sure that he couldn’t grip the thin cord well enough to lower himself to the ground below. He removed his gauntlets for a better grip on the smooth material and wound it twice around his armored right arm in the hopes that he could control the speed of his descent. It crossed his mind that he would still have to get back up the rope, but he knew he needed to focus on one problem at a time. Gripping the rope tightly in both hands, Cor slowly lowered himself over the edge and fell like a stone. Fortunately, the distance was short, and at the last moment he figured out how to control the fall very slightly. If it hadn’t been for these two facts, he might have broken both of his legs on impact; instead, he crumpled into a heap of black steel armor with a huge plume of dust.
Cor had gotten to his hands and knees and was coughing heavily when Thyss landed lithely next to him, having slithered easily down the rope. The dust had triggered a painful attack, and he could feel things moving in his chest every time he was wracked with a cough. Thyss found a torch nearby and lit it ablaze with her fingertip while waiting for Cor’s coughing to subside, which took several minutes. Finally he stood, hacking a glob of blood streaked phlegm to the floor.
“What was that about?” she asked him.
“It is something the Dahken live with, though I’m not sure why. Sometimes it just happens.”
As he looked around, Cor’s mind superimposed his memory of the dream onto what his eyes saw. He could see the torches lit and billowing smoke, even though they were dead and covered with dust. The crypts themselves looked the same though somehow older, and now he could read the names of the Dahken whose glyphs were inscribed on the doors of their tombs. Cor knew precisely where he was and immediately set off down the lane between the crypts, again drawn by some force that made his blood now feel as if on fire. Thyss followed, using her abilities to light a torch every so often, further lighting the catacomb.
In his dream, Cor had walked seemingly forever between never ending rows of crypts before they disappeared entirely, and he had to walk with no sense of time or direction before reaching a stone wall. In reality, the pair passed about a dozen crypts, having walked not even two hundred feet. The wall was in fact natural, part of a cave that had been smoothed by human hands, and a heavy wooden door stood directly in front of him. Cor could now read the glyphs on the door, when years ago he could not decipher the name.
“Lord Dahken Noth,” he whispered.
Thyss glanced at him before placing her lit torch in one of the two stands that flanked the door, discarding the dead torch that the stand held. She lit the torch in the other stand and then drew her sword from its scabbard on her back. It was the first time Cor had ever seen the weapon unsheathed, and it was quite wicked and beautiful at once. The blade was as long as Soulmourn and curved down its length dramatically; he believed it was known as a scimitar. The weapon had one razor sharp edge on the outside of the blade’s curvature, and the steel seemed to have a green tint to it, just as Soulmourn occasionally gleamed purple.
“Impressive,” Cor said, a word that he seemed to use regarding Thyss more and more often, and some part of him hoped she felt the same of him.
“This is Feghul’s Claw,” Thyss said, virtually preening the sword. “One day, I will trouble you with its story.”
Cor again regarded the door, seeing little other option at this point but to open it. Every urge within him screamed to delay no longer, but he knew that some confrontation or another awaited him on the other side of the heavy wood door. He knew Noth lived, and the man, or whatever he now was, would not relinquish his property so easily. Cor removed the chain mail from his body and left it in a pile on the floor, stripped down to his black tunic and breeches.
“What are you doing Cor?” Thyss asked him.
“I won’t need it in there.”
Cor braced himself against the large door and nearly fell into the room as it opened smoothly on hinges that made not the slightest sound. Thyss followed behind him and immediately lit the first torch she saw which was on the wall opposite the door. Cor, his balance regained, saw Noth’s armor directly in front of him on a stone shelf, exactly where he knew it would be. He could feel the helm, hauberk and legguards singing to him, begging to be worn in battle. He coveted them more now than ever, but Cor knew something else must be dealt with first.
He turned to his left and was not shocked to see the ghoulish figure in a decaying gray robe staring at them intently. Noth was exactly as Cor expected him; skin as gray as Cor’s was stretched across his skull in a disturbing caricature of humanity. Noth’s lips were black and slightly pulled back against his white teeth, and his scalp was completely hairless. He sat in stone chair, carved right out of the wall, that Cor had seen him in twice before. Thyss turned slowly, looking around the room, and gasped when she saw the ghoul.
“Why do you return again?” Noth asked. He jerked the fingers of his left hand towards Cor, and an unseen force buffeted him, forcing him to take a step backwards. Noth cocked his head sideways, his unblinking eyes considering the situation. “So, this is real then. I knew one day you would come.”
“Lord Dahken Noth,” Cor said, dropping to one knee as he felt was proper, “I have come to request a great boon. The Dahken are scattered, and perhaps we are the only true Dahken left. Your citadel was destroyed by fire from the sky, and the Westerners turned on and destroyed the Dahken of Sanctum two thousand years later. I have no wish to quarrel with you, but I covet your armor and it me.”
“You cannot have it,” Noth responded.
“I need its strength to return the Dahken to the world.”
“What care I for the Dahken now? We were aberrations, mistakes of the gods. Let us be destroyed.” Noth spoke with venom, and his vision seemed clouded with darkness only he could see.
“Then stay here in your tomb, Lord Dahken Noth, and allow me your armor so that it may once again go forth into the world.”
“You cannot have it!” the ghoul screamed at him, rising to its feet. Parts of Noth’s gray robe disintegrated with the sudden movement, revealing dead gray skin underneath that was stretched thinly over his bones.
Cor stood, holding the ghoul’s gaze, and shrugged. “You will have to stop me,” he said, turning toward the black armor, gleaming in the torchlight.
Noth howled in fury and pumped his left fist in the air; another unseen force hit Cor squarely in the back, nearly knocking him off his feet. Noth curled the near skeletal fingers of his right hand into the shape of a claw, and Cor yelled in massive pain. He crumpled over, feeling as if someone were crushing the organs inside his ribs. Thyss extended her hand out towards Noth, her fingers extended and palm up, and blue white flames shot from her hand and enveloped the ghoul. Engulfed, the remains of his robe disappeared almost instantaneously, and his eyes, ears and thin skin began to melt from his body. Noth turned toward Thyss surprised, as if seeing her for the first time. He released Cor and turned his ire on her as the skin of his fingers peeling back from his bones.
The pain gone, Cor leapt from his position, closing the distance between himself an
d Noth almost instantaneously with his weapons drawn. Soulmourn came down swiftly, and cleaved through Noth’s right forearm, which was now little more than bone, crackling in the flames like a dried log. His right hand and wrist fell to the ground, and Noth looked at it slightly confused. Before Cor could strike again, Noth pushed the flat of his left palm at the Dahken, and he flew across the chamber and landed with his head hitting hard against the wall.
Thyss came at Noth, whose skin was completely gone and his bones beginning to blacken, and she brought her scimitar around to strike. Noth lifted his remaining hand as if to grasp her neck, and an invisible grip of steel took Thyss’ throat, physically lifting her off of the ground. She dropped her sword; her arms and legs flailed as she felt her throat crushing under Noth’s mystical grip. Just as the blackness overtook her sight, she was suddenly released and fell to the ground fighting for breath, the horrific pressure around her throat gone. Thyss’ vision was clouded over, but she could make out the shape of the still burning ghoul. Cor stood, sword in hand, over Noth’s other severed arm.
Cor looked at Noth in amazement, wondering how to defeat the former Lord Dahken. There was no flesh left of the man; what stood before Cor was a mass of horribly blackened bones, animated by some disturbing power Cor did not understand. But with both arms severed, Noth was apparently powerless, and he merely stood before Cor making no move whatsoever. Noth’s skeletal jaw opened and moved as if he attempted to speak, but with no flesh, he could not vocalize his thoughts. The skeletal remains took a step back and once again sat upon its stone chair, and he did not move again. Cor backed away from Noth and kneeled down next to Thyss, who was beginning to breathe more easily.
“What now?” she asked, her voice somewhat quiet and ragged.
“I take what I came for and leave Noth in peace,” Cor answered.
“It was never about finding a Lord Dahken, was it?”
“No,” he admitted, putting on Noth’s armor. If the skeleton reacted at all, Cor could not tell, though he did keep one eye fixed on it. “There has not been a Lord Dahken here for nearly three thousand years, not since the meteor struck and he became something else. We’ll leave him to whatever perdition awaits him.”
33.