Chapter 17 Procession of the Dead
Procession of the Dead
“So, let me get this straight,” I said as we neared the next challenge. “I’m walking into a weird ass mansion run by a man whose emotional repression is so intense…he doesn’t speak?”
“Yes.”
Carl-One popped up from behind a tree stump. “He hasn’t spoken a word in years!”
Carl-Two chimed in with, “Some say his last sentence was, ‘I’m fine.’”
“Don’t think he was actually fine,” I snorted.
Tarran slowed, her tone quieting, cocking her head as if listening to something.
“What is it?” I asked when she didn’t say anything.
After a moment, she sighed and closed her eyes, a blissful smile spreading across her face. When she finally opened them again, her violet eye was bright. “The trees hold a lot of secrets. Watch out for their teeth.” Tarran giggled, skipping ahead as we moved toward the ends of the trees.
I frowned at her, looking from her back to the Carls. “Is she okay?”
The Carls exchanged a serious look, strange on their normally jovial faces. “She does this sometimes,” Carl-Two told me, Carl-One nodding in agreement.
“It doesn’t happen often, and she’ll snap out of it in a few minutes.” Carl-One added.
“Being the guide is not an easy task, and Foreverland only lets you know what it wants you to know. It…takes a toll on a person.” Carl-Two sounded almost sad, but they trudged on ahead to catch up with Tarran, leaving me to trail behind.
***
Twilight had already swallowed the sun by the time we stumbled through the last bramble, crossing over the Kingdom of Torment’s territory line.
Thorns tugged at my sleeves like small, pinprick fingers as we pushed the last bush aside.
Ahead, a clearing opened wide, a thick fog, milky and low, winding around my boots with sluggish intent.
That was when I saw them.
The gates. Iron, ancient, tall enough to shame the trees that courted them. They creaked open of their own accord as we approached, slow and deliberate, as though an unseen hand was welcoming us in.
Beyond the gates, a stone bridge stretched over an inky river so still and dark, I questioned if it was water.
The fog parted on the other side, peeling back a curtain to reveal the Kingdom of Torment.
A ruined kingdom. Towers hunched under their own weight, statues leaned or lay crumbled entirely.
There were no birds, no wind, no activity like in the Kingdom of Valor.
Only silence lay before us.
Then, they began to appear.
Shapes at first, glimmers at the edge of my vision until they took on more solid forms.
Ghosts.
They stepped forward one by one, translucent and pale, dressed in faded splendor of a time long past. A tall, willowy girl with a dull crown half-buried in long, floating copper hair.
Another gripping the hilt of a rusted sword like it still mattered, hard anger on the planes of his face. Their eyes glowed faintly.
The women approached, silver robes trailing her like smoke. The top half of her face was hidden behind a plain mask, her voice barely more than a breath, but still, I could tell she was once incredibly beautiful.
“You have come. The Mistress welcomes you.”
Mistress? I wanted to ask who she meant, but my voice betrayed me, failed me. It stuck in my throat like glue, stiff and cold.
They moved around me, cutting me off from my group as they urged me forward. I whipped my head over my shoulder, and at Tarran’s reassuring nod, I moved with them, grateful to hear the sound of footfalls behind me signaling they were following.
We moved in unison, a procession of the dead.
We passed shattered courtyards, vines twisting up through the obsidian marble like a snake. Arches led to nowhere. Fountains had long since dried but still stood, cracked and decaying.
And then, I saw it.
The mansion.
It loomed above the rest of the kingdom, rising from the foggy mist like a devilish crown. Spires curled upward like claws. Ivy clung to its faces like vines. The front doors, tall and wide, were a story of a battle long since fought.
The ghosts stopped at the base of the steps and parted, the tall lady gesturing for me to enter. When Tarran and the Carls tried to follow, they halted them. “Her first,” her crystalline voice droned. “The king requests to meet her alone. You may join her later.”
With a heavy breath and one last panicked look to my friends, I climbed alone.
The doors swung open before I touched them.
Inside, the lights were wrong. Candles lined the walls, but they burned blue and red, casting long, twisted shadows like some kind of fucked up rainbow. The air was heavy with the scent of damp wood, a long hallway stretching forward in front of me.
As I stepped over the threshold fully, the doors creaked to a close behind me.
And that was when the whispering began.