Chapter 34 #2
The farther we walked, the stronger the ripples became. Still we saw no hint of light. There was just the stone wall beside us, the stone statues above us, and the vast, black stone well rising above all, sealed at its top by the works of the Khanum from days beyond memory.
Then I heard Tauri whisper, “I hear something. It’s just beyond!”
He raised his lamp, and together we looked.
We looked for a long time, waiting for our eyes to adjust.
Then we saw them.
Some dozen figures stood by the lake. They wielded long, dark poles and were stirring the depths of the waters, like puntsmen piloting boats through shallow canals.
They were churning the waters, moving them back and forth, back and forth, their movements aligning perfectly to a unified rhythm, as if this was all a well-practiced performance, completed here in total darkness at the bottom of the world.
And they were dead. Clearly so. Their flesh was gray and black, and horribly desiccated, shriveled to little more than bone and ligament in places—and yet their skulls and eyes and faces, if they had them at all, were lost in a great, blooming crown of fungus, the enormous stalks reaching up some ten span in height.
The fungal stalks swayed as they moved, as if dancing with them, reveling in the dark, still air of this dark, still, forgotten place.
“Oh, by hell,” whispered Tauri. “Oh, by Sanctum…”
“How is this so?” I heard myself saying. “How…”
“The fungus keeps the dead in service,” murmured Tauri. “That we knew. But for how long? How long?”
He spoke those last two words a little too loudly, and they echoed in the deep.
Then came new movement across the waters.
There was a figure sitting at the back, one we’d not yet seen: a still, silent, gray thing, crouched over some instrument, its crown of stalks rising above them.
It came to life, reached forward, and made a movement, as if artfully plucking the strings of a harp, though I could not spy it in the shadows.
Tones filtered through the darkness, high and strange and unearthly. I had never heard their like in all my life.
Upon hearing this, one of the water-stirrers froze.
Then, with slow, creaky movements, it set down its pole, picked up a stone cup from the rubble, and filled it with dark waters.
Then it began to walk down the stone rim to us, its movements stately and regal, like a priest performing a seasonal rite.
“Tauri,” I said, my voice shaking, “it comes to us now.”
Tauri’s voice shook even more as he answered: “Din. Look down. Look down, right now.”
I did as he asked. He was holding his lamp just above the surface of the dark water.
There, just five span below the cloudy waters, was a vast pile of bones, so great that it sank away from us like sand along the bottom of the deeps.
And from the shape of them—from the many skulls, with so many eye sockets and crooked teeth—they were all of human make.
The scrape of the thing’s feet on the ground as it walked to us. A dribbling of water as its cup spilled.
“Tauri!” I whispered hoarsely. “We must go!”
Together we fled back the way we came, and slipped into that tunnel and crawled on into the darkness. Though as I crawled, I could have sworn I heard the scrape of dried, dead flesh upon stone behind us, as if the thing still sought us out, laboring to deliver its cup to our lips.
—
We exited into the rubble, panting and exhausted. Neither of us could speak aloud of what we’d witnessed. Like much of this place, like the forest itself, it defeated us. We could no more discuss it than a swallow could know all the winds of the skies.
We began our long trek back through the rubble to Burav’s abandoned cabin. Somewhere along the way I found myself laughing hysterically, unable to keep the cackling from my lips.
“What is it?” asked Tauri. “What do you laugh at?”
“Meris Chamhali Ayonias!” I cried.
“What? What is that?”
“Don’t you remember? She said that was what it was called, your Touched Site. The cup of heaven, the place of the angelic, eternal servants! Yet how angelic did they look to you?”
I kept laughing, unable to beat back the madness of it all. Tauri stared at me, his eyes wide with horror. Then he grabbed me by my collar and shook me until my senses returned. Together we continued out of the crumbling city, and back into the shivering seam of the wood.
—
When we exited into the rolling plains of Lacanthim, both of us nearly burst into tears of relief.
I ripped off my helm and cast it away, then sank to the earth, and fought the desire to take off my boots and cast them away, too.
I wished to keep no part of me that had come close to those dark waters.
Tauri knelt in the high grass, panting. Then he looked at me. “That was real, wasn’t it?”
“It was real,” I said hoarsely. “And I will never forget it, as much as I wish I might.”
He was silent for a long, long while. “I…I told you once that the web must fester in waters full of corpses to learn how to conquer the mind. But…but I never…”
“It was slavery,” I spat.
He sank into the grass, eyes wide, lips trembling.
“A crime worse than slavery,” I said. “For at least slaves have the escape of death. Those folk were not even granted that.”
“Din…” murmured Tauri.
“The Daljen were the masters of orchards. The tribe of Khanum who grew all the provisions and nourishment for the ancient Empire. Yet who harvested these crops? Who tilled the land, labored to pull sustenance from the soil?” I fought back another bout of mad laughter.
“Perhaps it’s to be expected. We see the field cats and the cattle as our inferiors.
Should we be surprised to find that the Daljen once felt the same of common folk like you and me? ”
There was a long silence as we sat in the grass together, grappling with the abominations we had witnessed. Then, suddenly, Tauri cried out and leapt upon me, forcing me to the ground and shaking me by the collar. “And they were immune to it!” he bellowed at me. “Weren’t they?”
“Wh-what?” I said.
“The Khanum, and the Daljen!” he screamed. “They couldn’t be commanded, couldn’t be conditioned! Not by their own creation!” He pulled me close, his eyes bright with rage and terror. “How long have you known what she is? Or do you know?”
I did not answer.
“She wasn’t bewitched by the tune of the pipe,” he hissed. “Not because of wax in her ears or any such silliness. It is because she is beyond it. Isn’t she?” He shoved me back down and stepped back, breathing hard, face flushed.
“Tauri…”
“Say nothing!” he cried. “Don’t speak! Don’t…” He looked away. “And do not follow me! I…I wish I had never met you, Kol! Damn it all and damn your eyes!”
I watched as Tauri strode away into the grass to the carriage in the distance. I watched as it started off, churning up a great cloud of dust. Then it shrank to nothing, and he was gone.