Chapter 64 #2
Eventually, I return to the silver statue. Stand, and peer out over the pool grimly. I just don’t know. Perhaps if this test had gone the way it should, I’d at least have a better understanding of what I need to show on the other side of it.
“Rotting …” I put my hand on the statue’s shoulder once more. “Bring me something I can use to prove to a draoi that I passed this gods-damned test.”
The silver form doesn’t move for a second, and I sigh, assuming it’s not going to work.
Then it turns. Strides through the pool and over to the body of its fallen counterpart. Reaches down and with a series of sharp, twisting motions, wrenches the body’s left arm from its shoulder joint.
I watch the violence with vaguely disturbed horror, even if it’s not against flesh. The statue returns and thrusts the arm at me, an almost angry motion.
“No need to be petulant.” I take it. It’s hollow, though the silver is still thick enough that it’s almost too heavy to hold one-handed.
“Alright. This will work,” I eventually mutter, understanding even as I struggle with its weight. There’s no way I can secure it to the stump on my arm, but it doesn’t matter. The symbol alone will be enough.
I stare at the statue. Motionless again in front of me, but this … this choice was a reaction. Based on situational awareness. Based on me.
I put my hand on its shoulder once again. “Are you able to communicate?”
No answer.
I hold my breath until I’m certain nothing is forthcoming, then let it out with a sigh. Above, the moon has started heading for the horizon. “Probably for the best; I get the impression you don’t like me much. Get me safely out of Fornax.”
The statue moves and before I can resist, wraps impossibly strong fingers around my waist, painfully tight.
I shout in alarm, drop the silver arm and try to twist away, but it’s hoisting me, throwing me unceremoniously over its broad shoulder and pinning me there with one hand.
Then, as I snarl against the uninvited abuse, it crouches and picks up the arm.
Leaves the massive atrium, and the golden glow of the Aurora Columnae, behind us.
I recover my senses enough to put my hand against its silver flesh. “If it’s … safe for me to … just walk … then let me down … you ass,” I gasp as the air is jostled from my lungs.
The statue keeps on moving.
“Rotting … gods-damned … vek.” I force myself to stop fighting the thing’s grip, and do my best to position myself more comfortably.
The statue is moving at the same deliberate pace it adopted when chasing me.
We have two or three miles to travel to get to the other side of the lake. Probably an hour of this, at minimum.
I grit my teeth, and try to ignore the powerlessness of the situation. If this is what it takes, then this is what it takes.
I’m carted in undignified fashion out through the short, dark passageway. Can’t help but tense, heart pounding, ears straining, as the dribbling water runs over me and then the outer archway is in my sight behind us.
Cold, thunderous clacking of stone against stone again, and my breath shortens to panic.
I twist around as best I can, trying to see what I’m imagining in my head as every muscle waits for the attack. There are dark shapes from the corner of my eye. Moving, but—I realise after a rattled few seconds—not madly rushing like they did when I came out here alone.
Finally, some of them come into view. They’re crowding around us but pausing a few feet away, as if at an invisible barrier.
Not reaching out, even if menace rolls off the inscribed obsidian discs that comprise their faces.
Each one is turned toward us. Toward me.
And every step the form carrying me makes, every single obsidian statue takes a corresponding one.
They’re coming from everywhere. More. More.
Flowing around us, barely any space between them.
All pulsing in my mind. The silver statue walks on, a bright island through a sea of black.
They follow in a rippling, dark wave. Clogging the street, now.
Still only a few feet between me and the nearest of them.
Never any closer. Never any farther. Only the thundering clattering of their polished feet against damp stone to accompany us.
“Um,” I whisper shakily. “Could we go a little faster?”
We do not.
We move on, shadowed by our eerie, massive coterie. Me barely able to breathe from both position and dread. Willing the body beneath me to increase its pace. There’s a faint light in the sky to the east. Getting rapidly stronger. I don’t have long, but I think we can make it.
We walk the slick streets for twenty minutes. Forty. My muscles ache from trying not to move, from the constant tension and terror. The glow on the horizon is too bright. The clicking roar of a thousand feet stamping in time to keep up, never breaking position, never getting too close or too far.
Then, finally—abruptly—we stop.
I have time only to register the sudden lack of motion before silver hands are hauling me upward and then tossing me bodily forward.
I shout and twist awkwardly in mid-air, manage to land on my side and roll to lessen the impact.
Scramble to my feet and then backward, hand out defensively, expecting a flood of obsidian to be rushing at me.
Instead, I am met with a sea of silent, motionless black forms on either side of the silver one.
They are arrayed in a perfect, invisible line that extends between the edges of the two last buildings on either side of the street, and I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to find only cobbled stone and an archway, identical to the one through which I entered the city, ahead.
The shore of the lake past it is tinted a rapidly lightening blue-green as it reflects thickly forested hills beyond.
A lone, white-cloaked figure waits beneath the trees.
We’ve reached the outermost edge of Fornax.
The silver sentinel suddenly moves again. Tosses its counterpart’s arm after me with a disdainful, almost peevish motion. It makes a hollow ringing as it clangs and clatters and rolls to a stop next to me.
“A pleasure spending time with you, too,” I mutter acerbically. Cautiously pick it up, struggling again with its immense weight. Never taking my eyes from the massive crowd of watching, pulsing statues only a few feet away.
The first rays of sunlight hit the buildings behind me, and the ground trembles.
Vek.
I run.
Nothing chases, no terrifying clatter of feet in pursuit as I struggle with freezing, stiff limbs and the burden of my trophy. The water over the steps ahead, leading down from Fornax, has started to froth. The stone begins to sink.
Then I’m stumbling through the archway, leaping wildly. My feet hit the sludge of the lake’s floor. I splash madly toward the shore, ignoring the renewed shock of the icy water.
Lir is waiting. The white-robed druid looks horrified as he watches, his gaze fixed behind me.
I don’t dare turn until I’ve reached the safety of the small beach; when I do I see the city has already sunk several feet, the heads of the statues that followed me just now level with the surface.
They are still gathered, crowded at the city’s edge.
Motionless. No struggle as they slip beneath the waves.
I collapse onto the shale. Breathing heavily.
“Deaglán.” Lir’s voice shakes. Something is wrong—anger or fear, and either way not a good sign—but he is following the forms. “What favour have the gods shown you in Fornax?”
With an exhausted motion, I slap the silver arm down in front of the dismayed druid.
“A great gift.” The heavily engraved limb lies there, palm upward, the three interlocked whorls of Fornax visible on it. Lir pales as he stares, transfixed. The dawn casts his haggard features in sharp relief.
I take in his expression. Unease suddenly overcoming relief.
“A great gift indeed.” The deep, amused voice from behind him sends my bare hands twitching for a weapon I no longer have. A hulking shape emerges from the trees. Then three more behind it, cutting off any thought of flight. “Surely the gods have favoured you.”
There’s motion, the tossing of something toward me. Several pieces of wood, rent and splintered and hacked and charred, scatter in front of me. I stare, confused, until I gradually spot familiarity in the symbol-covered remains.
My heart drops. No pulse coming from any of the pieces, but I know straight away that I am looking at the shattered remnants of my spear.
The largest of the shadows steps forward out of the forest and into the dawn.
“Good to see you again, Leathfhear,” says Gallchobhar.