Chapter 3 Worthy
Worthy
“Not dead yet,” the voice cut through the sepulchral silence.
Finley froze. His heart was in his throat. Where the figure’s eyes should have been there were open pits, but a blue-white glow had started to build deep in the empty sockets similar to the color of the dagger.
The color of death. It’s… beautiful. And horrible. Beautiful and horrible.
The creature was looking at him. Seeing him.
He had never been so aware of being gazed upon.
It was truly unnerving. There was a hunger in those glowing eyes.
Maybe it was just a hunger to see something new after so very long.
Or maybe it was a hunger of a different kind.
He was alive and it was… well, he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“You came,” the creature whispered, a whiff of rot flowing over Finley’s face.
Finley wanted to flinch away from the hideousness of it.
The dried yet somehow moist remnants of flesh.
The bone–some old and withered while other parts were slick and yellow–poked through in places where the flesh and clothes had rotted away.
How could it still be alive? Its organs were shriveled in the remnants of its chest cavity.
How could it still be talking? No lungs, tongue, or voicebox.
How could it still be thinking? The brain must be mush.
Yet it was doing all of these things almost as well as him.
Magic. Death magic? Maybe. Necromancy? Huh.
“I… yes, I came,” Finley said carefully.
He didn’t want to make it angry or fearful or whatever else it could be so that it might do whatever else it could do. He had no weapons to use against it. And really, what could a sword or gun do against something that didn’t have blood? That didn’t need a brain to think?
And he wasn’t very strong. Despite this thing being just bone and sinew with some dried flesh, it had a literal death grip on the dagger and the book that he couldn’t break. So he needed to be exquisitely careful and use the one weapon and shield he had: his intelligence.
“So long… no one came,” the creature sounded almost mournful.
Finley blinked. How long had this creature been here?
Since the city was locked down by Vex? It had to be.
No one had been able to find Illithor or enter it since then.
Until the Leviathan came. But something must have happened to let them in.
But this creature… this creature had been here much longer than the Leviathan had, he guessed.
He was definitely guessing, but it felt right.
If the Leviathan had been here any great length of time, they would have broken through to Earth far before they actually had.
And this thing had been here longer than five years or ten or twenty…
“The city has been… abandoned.” Finley shook his head.
That wasn’t quite right. How to describe it?
“Preserved. Uhm. For later. But no one has been here in some time. But… but maybe you know this? Did you come here right at the end when Vex told everyone to leave, right? Just before the deadline maybe? When it was empty? And you thought you could… take the book and dagger?”
That’s what he would have done. Waited until the place was practically deserted then gone after the powerful artifacts himself.
No priests would be here to guard them. No worshippers to get in the way.
No one to see or stop or know. Then the dagger and the book would be his.
Except it hadn’t quite worked out that way for this being.
Because it was still here. Still alive… somehow.
“You didn’t get out,” Finley remarked softly. “You didn’t make it.”
The figure’s shoulders rose and fell.Was it breathing? It didn’t need to breathe. There couldn’t be much of its lungs left. So it was likely the memory of a need to breathe.
Disturbing.
“Trapped… here,” the creature murmured and more rot flooded Finley’s face.
He coughed, trying to clear that smell from his nose and throat. The creature tilted its head to the side. Did it know what it looked like? What it had become? The horror it now was?
Does this kind of magic always lead to this end?
Living with elves had made Finley ultra conscious of age and imperfection.
In some ways, he found the wrinkles on human faces all the more lovely and precious because they would never appear on elven ones.
But, at the same time, it was hard to be among beings that were so preternaturally beautiful.
Though he criticized Rhalyf for his narcissism about his looks, he realized now how much more honest that was than the other elves that just acted as if they were naturally better.
To be aware of one’s looks was to know one could be improved or downgraded.
Rhalyf… I wish he was here. He would know what to do. But no! I have to do this by myself. And if I succeed in gaining magic then he and I can be equals. Maybe I can show him things that will amaze him and leave him speechless!
“Defenses,” the creature suddenly said.
“Yes? The skeletons?” Finley tipped his head towards the dead that surrounded the creature. “You took the book and the knife. But they trapped you.”
The creature tilted its head as it regarded him, but said nothing. Finley looked over his shoulder at the still and waiting skeletons then his eyes dropped to the old dried blood semi-circle the creature had drawn about itself.
“You figured out how to keep them away,” Finley murmured. “But the book… the dagger… they weren’t enough to get you out?” Finley asked.
“Not in time,” the creature finally answered.
Time? This creature has had nothing but time.
“In time?” Finley blinked. “How did you run out of time?”
“Taught me.” It tilted its head to the book that was still tucked in the waistband of its rotting clothing.
Finley’s heart rate rose. The book had allowed this being to stay alive through the ages. Assuming it wasn’t an elf and immortal to begin with. He stared carefully at the hood and the ears within it. Were they pointed? They didn’t look pointed.
Everyone has told me that humans can’t wield magic like elves or other immortal beings can. Does it run the opposite way too? Can elves not wield this magic? Could this person be a mortal? Or was once a mortal?
The idea of becoming this in exchange for power didn’t appeal to Finley.
He wanted to be able to protect himself and his friends.
But he didn’t want to become a lich… A lich!
That’s what this thing reminded him of from D&D.
A mage who had gone beyond death. But still…
did great power always mean great horribleness?
Maybe it didn’t use the magic correctly. It must not have. It’s been stuck here. What kind of great magic couldn’t get past a dozen or so skeletons? No, its the user that’s the problem. The student. Not the teacher. It shouldn’t have the book…
“You learned from the book?” Finley clarified after he realized he’d been silent too long.
The creature was leaning towards him. It pulled back when he spoke. What had it been intending to do? He should step back. He should…
“Great power,” it murmured softly.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it does have that,” Finley answered.
Vex must know how great a power this is. Why give it to me? Why leave it here with this creature? Surely Vex could easily take the book and knife and… he must not be able to use it. This power elves cannot use. So he sent me… no, he just told me about it. And if I can take it…
“Why did you come?” the creature asked. “For power?”
Power? That sounded so crude. He wanted magic. Magic was glorious. Magic was wondrous. Magic was… magic.
“For protection,” Finley answered. “The Leviathan have invaded my world and… and I need a way to protect myself. I need magic. And this is the only magic that humans can wield.”
“H-humans?” The creature tilted its head the other way.
“Ah… mortals,” he clarified, realizing that this thing had likely never heard of Earth or humanity. It was a being of the Under Dark.
“Mortal, too,” the creature nodded and pointed to itself.
“Oh, but you… you live in the Under Dark and in Illithor, but you’re mortal? I suppose that makes sense that–”
“Mortal,” it repeated with a touch of disgust. “Weak.”
Finley swallowed. The image of the Leviathan hawking over him came back. How he had cringed before it. Closed his eyes and waited for death. That was weak. Mortal. Magicless.
“Is that why you took the book?” Finley asked. “To protect yourself.”
“Strong. Strongest,” the creature told him with a fleshless grin.
Finley blinked. “Stronger than the elves’ magic?”
He couldn’t believe that. After all, they lived for ages mastering their power and training themselves for–
“Much stronger,” the creature grinned wider. “Nothing stands before death.”
Finley considered this. The elves were immortal.
But even they could die. Weapons and magic could kill them.
And while there were plenty of old elves around, the ancients he expected weren’t really there.
Where had they gone? Did they choose death in the end?
He’d never had the courage to ask. Could eternal life become unbearable? Maybe he would ask Vex.
“I see. But…” And here, he grimaced, “you’re stuck in this room. Seemingly. You haven’t left and used that… power.”
The creature regarded him. “Ran out of… time.”
“But time is all you have–”
“Time.” It looked down at its withered and wasted body.
Finley blinked. “Oh…”
He looked down at the ground by the creature’s feet.
Were there dried curls of flesh? He looked at the being’s body more carefully?
Was all the missing flesh and organs from natural decay?
Really, though, what was natural about any of this?
! Yet, when he looked closely, he saw that parts had been cut away.
Perhaps organs had been carved out of the body.