To Walk a Road of Ruin - Chapter IX

CHAPTER IX

“Waking in an unfamiliar place usually means

explanations are in order,

doubly so if a strange woman is at your side.”

-Albion proverb

In the dark, warm fog of my slumber, a hole formed. At first, it was only a single pinprick, shining like a keyhole in a dark room, white light streaming from the other side. After a moment another formed, then another and another after that, until they were arrayed like some kind of strange constellation in my mind, providing self-awareness where none had been before.

The light made me vaguely uneasy, my stomach unsettled even in this dream state. It promised pain, pain I did not want to face. I tried to twist away, to roll over and return to oblivion, but no matter how I turned, there it was. Slowly, it grew brighter, and I imagined I could hear soft, unintelligible voices drifting from the glow.

With shocking suddenness, the space between the pinpoints rent, like the fabric of a sail caught in a tempest. The constellation became a scar of light, a jagged wound in my comforting blackness. My stomach twisted anew, and my shoulder began to ache, burning as if a single coal had burrowed deep inside and had suddenly ignited. And now that coal was slowly, hair by hair, trying to tear its way free.

The light had become overwhelming now, the loving dark all but evaporated. Those whispered words seemed now a Dragon’s roar, too loud to discern any meaning. I writhed against the stinging wound, teeth clenched so hard I feared they might crack, as I strained to make out what was being shouted with enough force to rattle my bones.

 “Hold still, damn you!”

My eyes slid open, the light of the sun high above almost instantly blinding me. I swung my head to the side, vision blurred with the suddenly real brightness, and saw hands upon my shoulder. Sudden pressure welled from those blood-slicked fingers, and misery followed, shearing like knives into my heart. I cursed and swung my other hand towards the source of the pain.

Fist met flesh with a wet slap, driving those probing fingers away from me. I realized I was damp, soaked in cold sweat. Whatever I had struck was moist as well, my hand coming away sticky. My flailing limb flopped into view, rebounding from the weak blow, the other dampness explained by the crimson of blood painting my knuckles. Somehow, I knew it was mine.

“You are the very soul of gratitude, Saga. The next time I attempt to aid you, please, strike me beforehand, so that I may have incentive before I begin.”

The acerbic tone, so heavy with sarcasm, delivered in the familiar, cultured tenor could only come from one person. Still dizzy, weak and cautious, though, I had to ask.

“Richter?”

I heard that familiar, rehearsed scoff, and my colleague’s raven-toped visage came into view. His mouth had settled into its usual, smirking cast, though this time it could be said to border on an actual grin of delight, rather than a quirk of cynical humor. The circles had gone from under the invoker’s eyes since I last saw him, and all things considered, he looked a far cry better than I felt, even clad as he was in the same charred, travel stained tunic and breeches he had sported in Ward.

“Could it be any other, old friend?” His tone attempted to convey hurt, both at my lack of recognition and, I suppose, my blow. It failed to mask his relief, however. “Who else would risk both health and safety for you, and shrug off your blows with such admirable aplomb?”

It was most definitely Richter. I struggled to rise, placing weight on my uninjured arm and pushing myself upright. My abdomen moaned in protest, muscle feeling bruised and torn, as if a thousand fists had pummeled it soft. I could taste bile, dry and rusty under my tongue, and realized I must have purged myself repeatedly during my stay in the darkness. I was lucky to have not drowned.

Now closer to vertical, I took stock of my surroundings. Wherever we were, the Golga was not near. We were partially sheltered by the cavity of a rock, a scar in the side of a short, green hill. I had been moved free of that shelter, and lay beneath the late afternoon sun, the clouds that had harried our journey through the Empire having thinned this day. Based on the flattened grass, I had only been recently moved.

Inside that cavity, a small, smokeless fire popped and hissed. Above it, skewered on a makeshift spit, sizzled a pair of gutted marsh lizards, probably raths or toves by the look of them. Nearby the fire, hunched Grail, the same ruin of a coat wrapped about him as I had seen in Ward. His hands worked with surprising deftness, despite the rheumatism apparent in his swollen joints, as he cleaned and adjusted the repeater. Beside him were piled my other bits of gear, loops on my cartridge belts almost empty and leathers now heavily patched.

Farther back in the cleft was the primary object of my attention. Ialae rested in the shadows, tucked beneath several blankets and still as the grave. For a moment, something inside me twinged painfully as I thought the knight dead and my efforts for naught, fear and remorse eddying in a disquieting medley in my heart. Finally, a shallow breath stirred the crimson locks across the lady’s face, forcing a gasp of relief. She only sleeps, I thought, albeit deeply.

Forcing myself to look away, I took in the strangest sight of all, a score of spans away from the slumbering Templarae. Pegged to the earth by the rope trailing to its bridle, was a snuffling grey mule. The creature, perhaps indicating fresh preparations to leave or the haste of our shelter, was still mostly loaded, with wares I didn’t recognize. Saddlebags bulging with mundane goods, decanters secured with cord netting and even a small cask surmounting the back burdened the poor beast. I was surprised, not by its existence, however, but primarily by Richter allowing it anywhere near him.

A gust of wind reminded me that I was dressed in only the lower half of my smallclothes, my chest laid bare so Richter could work on the bite that ravaged my shoulder. Crooking my neck, I cast a wary eye at that wound, expecting a still-weeping gash or even dead flesh, black with necrosis, based on the burning pain that had awoken me. Instead I only found a tangle of thick, pink scar tissue, partly describing the jaw line of the goblin-spider that had mauled me.

With a trembling finger, I prodded the slick new skin, making sure I was truly whole once more. Without Richter’s thaumaturgical efforts on my behalf, I’d have probably lost my whole arm to that corrosive bite. I shivered, both from the chill breeze on my damp back and from the disturbing thought. Life as a cripple was inconceivable, though my off hand was less vital than, say, my leg or an eye. I can still shoot one-handed, after all.

Noticing my grasping at my freshly mended shoulder, Richter chimed in. “Now, I would avoid putting undue strain upon that until given some time to fully mend. I have only just managed to draw the last of the venom from that wound, and I would rather not see my handiwork ruined and then infected. To have you laid low by something mundane after pulling you from the brink would be rather … disheartening.”

I nodded, trying to conceal a grin at the note of concern in my old friend’s tone. It was obvious that, whatever had happened while we were separated, he felt some guilt for having to leave me behind. In truth, I didn’t hold it against him. The chaos that had consumed Ward had left little time for hesitation, the pragmatic part of my mind insisted. In a reversed situation, I would have trusted in Richter’s ability to survive as he had in mine… at least, I hope that confidence is what tempered that decision.

Probably better not to ask, I admitted grimly.

“Now that you have returned to the lands of life, good Saga”, Richter continued, ignoring my expression, “I would dearly care to hear how you came to this sorry state, if you feel up to it?” A disconcerted look, alloyed with puzzlement, had clouded my companion’s face. “I must admit, I was perplexed by our attempts to find you after the disaster in Ward. My auguries at first told me you simply did not exist.” He raised one finger as if to punctuate his point, ignoring the gore still coating it. “Not dead, mind you, but not a real person to begin with. I had almost begun to doubt my own abilities when the last cast of Thoth’s bones found you; close to death not two leagues from where Grail had hidden us.”

I opened my mouth to explain what had happened, where I had been and what I had seen. I was, however, preempted, not by Richter or Grail but by the gurgle of my own stomach. The drawn out squeal brought to my attention a more pressing need than explanations. I was famished, having not eaten since before we reached Ward and fighting for my life nearly every moment since.

Richter arched an eyebrow at my involuntary outburst. “Food before words I suppose. You must be as hollow as a hide drum.” His face pinched in look of supreme distaste, “Not surprising, actually. I found you stewing in your own humors, after all, and you’ve barely been able to hold water since.” He waved me forward with a bloody hand, pausing in mid-gesture to regard the crimson digits with an appalled glance, “Come on then, break your fast.”

I needed no further invitation. I rose, dizzy and tottering on legs that felt like soft mud, but still able to walk. I made a brief detour to Richter’s bottomless satchel to retrieve a threadbare tunic of grey wool, probably my last scrap of whole clothing, having left my bag to burn in Ward. With my modesty recovered, I sat myself across the fire from Grail. Hand unsteady with my hunger, I reach out and plucked the spit from its rocky perch above the coals, and brought the first reptile to my salivating mouth.

The browned skin split beneath my jaws, hot to the point of pain, but ignored in my haste. The meat was gamy, all strings and gristle and a salty sort of aftertaste. Definitely toves then, I mused, the meat of a rath being thicker and richer, more like pork. Under normal circumstances, tove flesh would have been choked down as a last resort, too bitter and tough to be palatable. As it was, it was divine.

I striped the first lizard of flesh, greedy fingers peeling it in like an orange and dropping hot segments into my mouth. Each morsel hit the pit of my stomach with the feeling of a stone dropped in a well, reminding me only of how hungry I really was. Quickly, the lizard became nothing more than bones, hanging from the stick by its ribs, and I turned to its brother with equal fervor. With both clean, I picked over their carcasses, cracking the legs to suck out the soft marrow, tossing the remnants back into the fire. In all, the gorging took a matter of moments.

I looked up from the grizzly remains of my desperate repast, juices coating my chin and slightly singed fingers. Richter wore a queasy look, jaw slightly askew, hands frozen in midair as he scrubbed them clean with a damp rag. Grail, on the other hand, seemed to be wavering between amusement and admiration. Wiping my face with a sleeve, ignoring the new vexation crossing Richter’s face at my lack of manners, I finally replied to Richter’s original queries, not with candor, but with a question of my own.

“How’s Ialae?”

Confusion first clouded my colleague’s grey eyes, then realization, then…something I could not define. Guilt? No, not quite, but that came close. Before he even opened his mouth, I knew my friend was keeping something from me.

“Ah, the lady Templarae and erstwhile cat’s paw. Ialae, is it?” I immediately noted the use of is, not was. Were there something wrong with the lady knight that my friend had not or could not remedy, he would already be referring to her in the past tense. “To be certain, we should have words over her and her… disposition. But please,” he said, spreading his arms wide and shifting his tone to border on an actual yell, “enlighten me on the miraculous events of you escape. It may very well shift the tone of later discourse, you understand?”

I didn’t, but there would be no arguing with Richter in his present attitude. Apparently, my poor mealtime etiquette and demands contrary to his own was enough to send him into a mood. That, and perhaps the presence of some sort of actual concern for what had happened to me. Maybe I’d been worse off than I thought, enough to actually have him worried.

Right.

I lowered my head, staring at my unshod feet, composing my thoughts. It was a difficult thing to piece together, to explain the chaos that had afflicted me. Especially being fresh from a slumber that had lasted Angels-knew how long, the remembrance was cloudy. It would take time to fully solidify, along with the light of later revelation. Still, I had to try.

Haltingly, I began my account, laying out the strange and broken path I had followed out of Ward. The flight from the Inquisitors and taking shelter in Golga was not difficult, truly the sanest part of my tale. The macabre nature of the wood and Ialae’s black history of the place was a bit more uncomfortable, the words seeming to summon the shades of that place even in the sunlight. Her kidnapping and my running battle with the spiders had to have made little sense, confused as I was when it happened.

But lastly, most vividly, and with as little flourish as possible, I described the feeling of that time. That rage: guiding, sustaining, demanding. I could hear its echoes, howling in my ears, but could no longer find it, that deep place inside me asleep once again, much as the heart of the Golga had described it. And the tree, the terror incarnate, trying to obliterate me, to snuff my sanity like the flame on a lucifer. Oh, I made sure Richter knew of it in gory detail.

Surprisingly, my companion had managed to stay silent throughout the entire process. I think if he had interrupted as I laid my soul bare, to cast doubt, to interject commentary or even ask for simple clarification, I would have been at his throat. But, I believe the nature of what had happened was apparent to all present, that the tale had to be told without disturbance, lest its spell be broken.

Having it out, having placed it in the hands of my friend was cathartic, like the purging of the spider venom from my body. It was painful to do, with weakness in its wake, but also a sense of being whole again. Perhaps, it was a purge of sorts, an expelling of mental poisons, ones that canker the soul if left inside.

I waited in silence for a time after I finished, letting my testament of that damned place hang heavy on the air, like the purple mists that had clung to the cursed ground. Somehow, the sun had sunk low in the sky during my story, shifting from yellow-white midday to hazy orange evening, and tinged crimson with twilight. I had not meant to take so long, but with each revelation had come a host of feelings and odd details that felt so vital, they had to be shared.

Finally, I looked up, eyes locking with Richter’s for the first time in my explanation. I saw therein something I had not seen since we were boys, not without layers of superiority or cynicism clouding it like cataracts. Were I not so drained I might have been taken aback.

It was compassion.

He stepped forward, around the smoldering remains of the fire, placing a hand on my shoulder, an expression of understanding. Grail, obviously as disturbed by the events of my flight as Richter, said nothing. It was understandable, after a fashion, friend of the father of a friend as he was. I doubted he thought he had the words to comfort me, or that he thought it was his place to do so.

“You have my apologies, my compatriot. Forcing you to relive such blasphemies was incredibly unkind of me, even cruel in hindsight.” The invoker cupped his forehead as he cast his gaze away, an expression that on anyone else would have oozed contrition. From Richter, it still seemed a pause for composing his next verbal moves.

I beat him to it. “What do think it was?” My voice was somehow smaller now, lighter than it had been moments before.

“What what was?”

“Any of it: what happened to the Golga in the time of Sammael? What that…thing in the heart of the wood was? What…what happened to me? Any of it.”

He sighed, tossing a glance Grail’s way, as if asking assistance. The Artemisian merely grunted, and replied in that swirling accent, “Dun’na’ be lookin’ ta’ me, young master. Yer tha’ one with all the learnin’ an’ world changin’ ideas. I’m jess’ a horse thief grown too auld fer’ his trade.”

Richter rolled his eyes. “I was simply hoping for a bit of moral support, kind uncle.” He frowned, “Though I suppose I have no claim on that, having spent all your goodwill just to acquire your services.”

It was Grail’s turn to scoff, “Ach. Ye’ll be spendin’ meer’ than’ goodwill fer’ me help, lad. Nay, ye’ll be passin’ off at least enough florins fer’ a new inn in a place a sight better than Ward afore I’m through with ya’.”

Richter waved his hands in the air. It was obvious they had rehashed this conversation several times before, during the time we were separated. It must have pained Richter to promise that kind of gold, gold we didn’t even have. Debts never weighted well on my friend.

“Beside the point, goodman. Saga’s questions are, for once, valid, if not pertinent.”

And there, the compassion was gone, returning to none-too-subtle disparagement.

Richter dipped back to his satchel, retrieving his gloves. Re-sheathing each hand, he continued, his cadence slipping back into that of a lecture. “As for the first of your black revelations, I have few thoughts. Places like the Golga have never held my interest, for professional reasons, you see?” He waged a finger. “An invoker too interested in the things and places of darkness usually gains the suspicion of more… holy men. And for good reason, to be perfectly honest.”

It was true. I had only studied Thanatology after proving my lack of aptitude in the arts of invocation. It would be a simple thing to apply the skills of calling on the Dragons and Daevas to the technical knowledge gleaned from studying the products of Damnation, and unlock the forbidden art of necromancy. Invokers suffered under enough suspicion, outside of the Luxor and the Council of Seers that is, without having to invite accusations of heresy. My association with Richter could even be construed as dangerous, should we ever compare notes, so to speak.

 “The only thing I can add to the myth and suspicion of Illuman folklore is that it does follow certain laws, such as that of sacrifice, quite precisely. The essence of a sacrifice mirrors its effect, as well as the magnitude of its potency. Invocation, for example, demands energies of both flesh and spirit, and that which is called up in anger may take different form than that raised in  the name of desire instead.”

I coughed, a bit out of my depth in this description of laws and energies. “But what could Berreck have sacrificed in Golga, to so twist it?”

Richter turned to face me again, teeth bared not in some grin of excitement, but more a grimace, as if his next revelation pained him. “You yourself called what you found in Golga a god, the tree with Berreck’s wytchknife still buried in it. A Daeva.”

 A Daeva. The tree was a Daeva. Not one merely invoked, but the Daeva itself. It was small wonder then, why I was reminded of Yggdrasill and his grove at the heart of Luxor. That massive blue pine was supposedly the avatar of the Daeva of life, though I had never experienced anything in its presence like I had felt in Golga. The thing brooding in the heart of the woods must have once been something of a similar nature.

Richter sat himself beside the fire, between Grail and myself and facing the wall of our shelter. The invoker lifted my discarded spit and, shaking the last lizard remnants free, began to stir the coals, trying to breathe life back into the ashes. For a few moments, we simply sat in silence, absorbing the weight of that revelation.

“The Resurrection cost man much, before it was finally vanquished.” His tone was heavy with bitterness and regret now, his desire to see the wonders of the first kingdoms readily apparent. “Cities of now mythical splendor lie in ashes, buried in the sands of the Blackened Wastes. Daevas and Dragons bound to places and phenomena unique to the north, now languish, their names forgotten and their power made rust.”

With a sigh, my friend turned from his vacant gazing at the rock, eyes sweeping from me to Grail and back again. “Worse still, are those that are remembered, despite their lost homeland. When their names are invoked, terrible, warped powers are unleashed, as if their very natures are now twisted against themselves. The name of Kali is only of historical familiarity to me, but counted first among the lost.”

He smiled, though no more than a shadow of one, his lips barely twitching, “The Daevas have always styled themselves as gods, so dependent on our feelings and thoughts as to desire worship for sustenance. The mystery cults of recent popularity stem from this dependence on man. And of all these self-proclaimed deities, Kali was one both feared and beloved above all other such pretenders. Indeed, respect and reverence were her very nature, said to draw admiration even in the early times, when worship of something other than God was unthinkable.”

The ancient slaughter made sudden sense then. Men bound to the cause of the Light had thrown their very lives into the jaws of the Damned, safeguarding both a weapon and ally against Berreck. They had been torn to shreds, hoping to save a creature synonymous with deference and awe, to preserve the heart of that concept for the world. And they had failed, in the end, the Daeva being twisted into a creature of terror and madness instead of respect and nobility. This, then, was the true sin of Berreck’s revenge.

“So, Kali was murdered? Reduced ta’ little meer’ than a broken shade, pollutin’ everythin’ around her with her heart’s blood?”

I responded to Grail’s query before Richter could. “No, not quite. The Daeva was tortured yes…broken, mutilated, and desecrated, of course. But what I saw was closer to alive than dead; full of fear and incomprehensible pain, but aware.”

Richter gave a surprised glance, lifting an eyebrow above his spectacles at my comment. “Just so, good Saga. In verity, I do not believe killing such a thing is possible. Slaying a being of such unfathomability without its consent would take far more than simply putting it to the sword. Such power as that would take must be beyond the very bounds of mortal man and whatever weapons we can devise.” He paused, as if to give the concept consideration, and then laughed, as if deriding himself. “Such sweeping power would give a man means as to challenge God Himself. I do not say this often, but it is an utter impossibility to conceive, let alone achieve.”

We sat in silence again then, soaking in the weight of what we had just uncovered. Kali explained much, not just about the Golga, but the Illuman condition in general. Just as Yggdrasill coaxed life from the stony earth of Samarkand, Kali must sow fear in the Illumani. Perhaps the entire cycle of crusade after crusade had been a reaction, an attempt to sweep the nameless dread from under their collective bed. All this time it had been in the one place they swore never to return, never to confront their great failure.

Richter, as usual, broke my contemplation, returning to our final subject. “As for you and your sudden dichotomy, Saga…”

“Yes? Can you tell me what has happened, what’s taken possession of me?” It was hard to keep the confusion and desperation from my tone.

“Possession? Now that would be troubling, were it true. No, if something had slipped into your mind during this existential battle your soul has decided to wage on itself, I would have seen it without fail. I have seen to your spirit as well as tattered frame, friend. Aside from a few lingering… discrepancies due to your trauma, you are the same man you have ever been.”

Even as I sighed, relieved, if still confused about what had happened to me, Grail broke in once again.

“I’m passin’ glad tha’ young master has given ya the all clear, so ta’ speak. Ya were beginin’ ta’ sound like one o’ the ridden.”

“Ridden?” Fear was already back, just an icy fog at the edges of my perception, but there none the less. Richter cast daggers with a single glare at Grail, then turned to me, exasperation in his tone.

“‘A colloquialism from the Free Cities, referring to those willing seized by their gods. The aforementioned mystery cults believe that their patron Daeva will take possession of a devout follower, in effect ‘riding’ him. It is believed those so possessed gain abilities beyond normal men and invokers alike. As I said, though, you are not possessed.”

I ignored Richter’s protests and turned back to Grail, “And what sort of things are these ridden given for their devotion?”

“That depends on tha’ beastie they bow ta’ now, lad. Most become skinwalkers, though, meer comfortable in tha’ shape o’ their god than that o’ a man. Tis’ said that some go even further, blendin’ tha’ man and tha’ beast into something out o’ a black dream.”

“Enough,” Richter interrupted, throwing his hands up in frustration. “As I have said, Saga is not possessed. Engaging in this further speculation about the nature of deranged cults and their practices will bear nothing but poisonous fruit. Now, if you please, I would rather we discussed another subject.”

I wondered for a moment what had Richter so riled. Perhaps he saw it as a questioning of his talent and intellect…unforgivable sins, indeed. I was happy to oblige, however. I had another question.

“Have it your way Richter. What, then, is happening with Ialae?” I cast an eye back at her still-slumbering form. “I doubt the lady would have slept through this whole conversation with our voices raised, unless something was wrong. You know what I went through to get her out of that place. I deserve to know what’s going on, at the very least.”

Richter clicked his tongue, looking chagrined. ‘Very well; I seem to have no other recourse. She dreams still because of me, not due to any dire ailment or fearsome wound taken in your flight from the dark.” Noting my confused expression, he swiftly continued, “I assure you, it was necessary for her to remain in the grip of Morpheus while you and I spoke, lest she cause undue…complication.”

I stood up, moving towards the Templarae. Richter intercepted me before I could rouse her, however. “Saga, wait, I beg of you. We need to discuss a few key... concerns about her presence before I can allow the lady to awaken.”

I nearly had him by the lapels before I thought better. As arrogant a bastard as Richter was, he had a reason for stringing me along like this. He had damn well better, anyway.

“The question we need to pose here is why she has decided to come with you. The logic of a devoted servant of the Illuman Church joining with a cadre of outlanders and accused heretics is severely lacking. It does, in fact, make reason stare in disbelief.”

It was, to be honest, something I had asked myself. I didn’t have a satisfactory answer. Mercer had attacked her and she had slain Inquisitors in turn. It seemed to imply some kind of schism in the ranks of the Church. Why that would give her sympathy for us remained to be seen. Perhaps Richter had a point.

“We have to face the possibility that she is a plant of some kind. Perhaps she seeks to turn us over to her own order when the time comes. Or possibly, she was sent to follow us and seize the heart when we retrieve it.”

“Seize the heart? I thought we were the only ones who even knew about the glass-blasted thing!”

Richter shook his head. “Saga, Saga, Saga…we are merely the only ones who know where it is. Churchmen and aspiring necromancers alike would do most anything to have either heart or hand, let alone both.” He leaned toward me, voice dropping to a stage whisper. “Kage is a highly connected man, as you well know. She could be another agent in his employ, like the priest who accosted me in the Imperial Library.”

“The lass could even be part o’ the cults o’ the Damned, fer’ all ya’ ken. Ye’ve given her a slew o’ reasons ta’ trust ya, but has she ever earned yers? Ya can’na believe her jess’ because the lass has a pretty face.”

Valid points all. I’d been working off of instinct, pure and simple, without time to cautiously uncoil facts. I knew next to nothing about Ialae, yet had nearly thrown away my life at least thrice to preserve hers since our fates had intertwined. But, part of me dared to insist, I can’t have misjudged her so badly as all that, even in my haste… can I?

“I understand what you are trying to say, Richter. Angels and Demons know why I’ve done what I’ve done since we entered Ward. But I also know what you’re implying we should do here. We can’t just leave her behind for the Inquisitors to scoop back up again. And I’ll be damned if we’re going to discard her as crow meat just to cover our own tracks. I know we’ve little practice extending trust, but can’t we, just this once, give someone the benefit of the doubt?”

I spread my hands, palms up, imploring him, for once, not to make this a battle over who was right and who was wrong. I didn’t have the energy to wrestle him on this, literally or figuratively, but giving the knight up felt like a mistake.

“Glass, Saga, I never dreamed of killing the girl. I was only hoping to divest us of excess baggage and a potential liability. I cannot deal with possible traitor in our midst with both a Demon and the Inquisition thirsting for my blood.”

“Fine,” I countered, “let her be my burden then. I can watch her just as well as you. Better, if you really think about it. As you say, she has an inordinate amount of trust in me. If I see the first hint of treachery, you’ll know faster than Hades does. I promise.”

My colleague bit back a retort, then another. In the end, Richter simply shrugged. “If I have your word on it then, I have no choice but to comply. She shall follow with us then.” He cast a weather eye toward the sinking sun. “You should take your rest, then Saga. You’ll need your strength if we are to strike camp tomorrow.”

I shook my head, moving towards my gear. “I’ll take the first watch tonight. I’ll need the time to explain things to Ialae, anyway.”

“As you like it my friend. I think I should make myself scarce so you might speak with the lady in peace.”

I could feel the crack from between us then. It was small thing, the kind that came when ego’s clashed, when the one who usually pushed found himself pushed back. But I knew such things could eventually tear a friendship asunder as well.

Time alone would tell.

To Walk a Road of Ruin - Chapter VIII

CHAPTER VIII

“Things always get worse.”

-The Collected Wisdoms

 

My sword was out even before I discovered my hand could not be freed by simple tugging. The twisted limb held me fast, twined tightly about my fist. Hissing oddly in the too-still air, my battered steel splintered the branch away from the tree as close to my own hand as I dared. Along with a generous shower of bark and deadwood, a spray of thick, red sap followed my stroke. The inconsistency of flowing fluids in such a long dead tree was nothing compared to the shock of Ialae’s disappearance, but it certainly did nothing to help my burgeoning panic.

Returning the sword to its scabbard, I began prying the tattered branch from my hand as I stumbled away from the offending oak. The leafless tips tore at my leathers, having burrowed into the cured auroch hide. Joint by joint I peeled that claw-like branch from my own clenched fingers, each pop sending another spurt of sticky vermilion ichor across my face and shoulders.

Finally free, I desperately tried to regain my focus. My panicked breathing rang ragged and hollow in my ears, rasping in counterpoint to my hammering heart. I swallowed, my throat finding nothing but dry flesh to grate against and cleave to, cloyingly free of lubrication. My tremoring hands pulled close to my body, one locked on the sword’s grip, the other on the pommel of the repeater. I screwed my eyes shut, and forced myself to count upwards until my heartbeat slowed to just a pounding. I was well into the centuries before it slowed.

Allowing my eyes to slide open once more, the lavender tinged gloom now surprisingly bright to my light-starved gaze, I began to search the misty wood. For long moments, I simply stood, deep into that darkness peering. Watching. Waiting. Fearing. No sign of life, no phantom form or shadow of Ialae met my desperate stare. The knight had been plucked from my grasp without my even knowing, and had vanished as thoroughly as if she had never been.

For a time, immeasurable in that dim and haunted place, I warred with indecision. Despite the disorienting nature of the wood, I did not doubt my ability to make a beeline for the border. Ialae was gone, taken by something so far beyond my ken that any attempt to save her would simply mean sharing her fate. The thought of abandoning her, though, left a similarly bitter taste in my mouth, my newfound honor tugging me back towards my doom.

Nothing in my life is cut and dried anymore, I cursed at myself.

Standing about in such a place while the hobgoblins of my mind danced their reel was a sure recipe for destruction. Shaking off my trepidation and bidding my internal debate to silence, I began to backtrack. I knew Richter would disapprove, but I also knew his cynical commentary about betraying my newfound morals would be unbearable if I left my unofficial charge to die.

My attempt to find where our trail diverged was dismal. Woodcraft was not something covered in my classical education, and I had found little call for it on the path my life had taken thus far. The thick, damp earth of the trail might normally be ideal for finding tracks, but the spongy, fleshy nature of the nightmare topsoil here left only formless slush in our wake. My untrained eye could not discern what was mine, what was the Templarae’s and what may have come from something else.

Still, I kept searching, my eyes straining for some sign or token marking the lady’s unseen departure. That logical portion of my brain that spoke in the voice of my oldest friend was already running wild again. Something eldritch would have to be involved to so literally pluck Ialae from my grasp and bind me to the tree. I began to doubt whatever had accosted her would leave any trail discernible to my eyes, even if I had practice in pathmanship.

Minutes of fruitless searching began to blur as I doubled back on myself. How long I spent, shuffling and crouching, raking my fingers across each identical patch of soil in the purplish murk, I cannot know. Like a spring-swollen stream eroding a clay bank, fear and frustration began to beat out sheer determination. Eyes watery with strain and leathers filthy with earth and fungus, I finally felt something inside snap, blossoming into anger.

Rearing upward, from my knees, I hissed out a curse so vile as to make a corsair speechless with shame. Frustration drove my fist out in a heedless path from my side. My guilt and tension wracked mind did not register the pain as my blow struck wood, jarring bone and cracking bark alike. Voice hoarse from thirst and trial, I discarded logic and threw caution to the wind, as I raised it in one hopeless, lung-pouring outcry.

“Ialae!”

That strange, muting quality of fog and forest crumbled before my shout, the reverberation lancing through like the first ray of dawn through the bleakness of night. My jaw snapped shut as quickly as I was able, clipping the last syllable of her name short. In my heart of hearts, though, I knew I was too late to reverse my outburst.

The echo of my desperation-born cry danced weirdly through the barren branches and rotting needles, a forlorn ghost cursed to wander this misty hell. I could only stand still as the last shadows of my voice brushed past me, feeling as if I had brought the attention of some horrible, all-seeing eye upon myself. I became aware, by a series of sharp degrees, of how very alone, and very vulnerable I now was. Hands still unsteady, now with fear rather than anger, I took a tentative step backwards, placing the solid reassurance of deadwood at my back.

My bootfall snapped the crisp, unholy silence of the perpetual lavender twilight, as loud as cartridge fire in my ears. The tattered and filth-encrusted remains of my once-blue tabard whispered between my knees with all the volume of a pennant snapping in a gale. Even the rattle of my saber, as the scabbard smacked against tree-husk I backed against, sounded more akin to pounding forge hammers than the gentle settling of steel. It was like the dead calm before a sudden thunderbolt breaks open a summer storm.

My breath seized in my throat as I waited for the hand of doom to fall upon me, to snatch me up as it had my erstwhile companion. Moments ran together like ink on a parchment caught in the rain. Reluctantly, my ravaged nerves allowed my burning lungs a slow, shuddering release. I blinked once. Twice. Thrice. Not so much as a rotten leaf in an errant breeze moved before my eyes. Only that same, arrhythmic purple beat sent shadows scattering and crawling. The illusion of deliberate, creeping movement was almost real to my fragile perceptions, but was quickly written off to my overarching ill-ease.

My carefully timed breathing became a shaking sigh, laden with all the flavors of relief, guilt and regret now coursing through my veins. Whatever had taken Ialae was long away from where I now stood. Whatever paranoid sense I had of my own impending ambush was simply that: paranoia. Bitterness flooded through me, the tang of it like bile in my throat. No, I spat in the confessional of my thoughts, Ialae is beyond my reach and all I can do is flee this place.

Then the laughter began.

It was a sharp, wavering whine, full of bubbling hisses and guttural, grinding barks. At first I couldn’t place it. That same eerie quality of the dead and tulgey wood that absorbed most sound near its birthplace seemed to spread the cries of black mirth in every direction instead, making them impossible to pinpoint. Ears straining and heart racing once more, I spun myself about, desperate to find the source of that devilish chortling. Nothing about met my adrenaline-dilated eyes, save those same crazed and creeping violet shadows, still making branches mimic the dance of spindly limbs.

I felt something thick and fluid strike the back of my gloved hand, still rigidly wrapped on the pommel of the repeater. At first, my mind brushed it away without even looking, regarding it as the return of the omnipresent Illuman rain. Then another drop fell, sliding across the back of my neck. It was gummy and hot, leaving a sticky residue where it passed on my flesh, burning like a welt left by a willow switch. My back arched reflexively, off hand slapping onto the spot and coming away with a thin patina of blood. Knowing now where the laughter must stem from, I reluctantly raised my eyes.

What greeted my gaze was madness wrought in flesh. A sea of fur and eyes, chitin and fang loomed above me, momentarily impossible to decipher. Through the gloom I began to pick out not one impossible form, but a multitude of them. Great or small, bloated or emaciated, they perched and scampered about in utter, unnatural silence, save for their Demon-damned cackles. Their perverse forms hung from every branch, clung to every bole along the far side of almost-path I stood upon. I spun, stumbling back in short, frantic steps to put space between myself and that unholy sight.

The faces of scavengers and vermin of every stripe could be seen: rats and weasels, jackals and hyenas. Their visages were blighted with sores and crammed with asymmetrical clusters of luminous eyes, blazing all the colors of some vile rainbow. Behind those mismatched heads swelled their incongruous bodies. Some slick and shining, others rough and bone-like, each possessed a vulgar curvature and unsettling array of limbs I had only seen on common, much smaller, spiders.

Creatures so defiled had to be products of necromancy, once natural but now bent and broken, forged into living weapons. More versatile than the undead, more biddable than reborn Demons, abominations such as these were used a shock troops and siege weapons. Infused with a thirst only blood and hatred could slake, their dependency on their dark masters varied from beast to beast. Some, like the Niddhog, were torpid outside the master’s sphere of influence. Others were fully independent, roaming free since the Resurrection.

These must be goblin-spiders, a part of the latter category, or so I had been taught. Thanatology also said that they were little more than vicious vermin, little more than spare parts and never growing much larger than a man’s hand. Apparently whatever had given them suck here in the darkness of Golga was far more potent nourishment than the flesh of men.

Curiously enough, even with the talons of Death swinging down to snatch me up and drop me into the maw of oblivion, I felt detached. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. I was alone, lost and oh so weary. Worst of all, I was staring something in the eye I could not fully comprehend without any chance of Richter’s typical cavalry to arrive and save me from the metaphysical. I was supposed to be someone else’s salvation. Where I was standing, I couldn’t even see a way to save myself.

That cruel, vulgar laughter cut off just as suddenly as it had begun. Every bulging, polychromatic eye spun towards me, blazing with inhuman madness and palpable rage. The sudden silence held for a handful of quick, throbbing heartbeats. Then, from some unseen member of that writhing horde, a howl arose. Like a huntsman’s horn, rallying the hounds, that cry was answered, each disparate beast piping its own terrible response. The sea of chaos began to shift towards me, splintering into unique droplets of damnation.

All of it; the pain, the fear, the exhaustion and frustration charged with them, threatening to scythe me down before a single fang could find its mark. It rose inside me like a flood, a wave to match the one before me. I tried to bite down, to shake myself free of that entangling enervation that left me helpless before both dooms, and found…nothing. Not a void or the cold bottom of any internal reservoir of will, but a simple tabula rasa, an icy numbness tinged only with the slightest edge of cold, cutting fury.

I latched onto this strange new feeling, wrapping myself in its aegis, leaving me suddenly unscarred by the hellish wounds of my recent travails. I was, for a moment, keenly aware of myself, as if realizing for just the blink of an eye who I was and where I stood. My hands throbbed, tightly wrapped on the grips of my weapons, singing out to be used. I felt my lips part, teeth setting into a feral grin. My stance shifted, and the wave of flesh struck.

The first goblin-spider to reach me was smallish, barely bigger than I was taught to expect in Luxor. Its midnight chitin glimmered sickly in the violet radiance; the monster’s vulpine face thrust fangs-first towards me. The repeater was free in an instant, its barrel smoking the next. I wasn’t even conscious of pulling the trigger. Lead tore through the monstrosity, its abdomen bursting like a rotten melon and spattering the environs with thick white ichor.

I had no time to be disgusted by its puss-like discharge, even had I been capable. I was already falling backwards, a reverse somersault taking me off the game trail and into the forest primeval. Spiders began to rain about me like overripe fruits, some leaping forward like their overeager brother, others descending on gossamer strands of milky webbing. Most were of a more manageable size, the larger beasts slowing as they were forced to tear through the canopy of deadwood above.

I continued to backpedal, ducking and weaving erratically, both hands on the repeater now. Another shot rang out, tearing the jaw off a rat-like head that came too close. A third missed the abdomen of a rappelling spider above me, tearing its line free instead. Eight legs flailing, it landed on my other shoulder, heavy as a cat and hissing in my ear. With an upward stroke, I brought the repeater’s leather-shrouded pommel to meet it, smashing its snout and sending the vermin flying from my arm. Whipping myself about, I sent a fourth round flying, shearing the legs from another abomination as it skittered towards me across the loam.

I was rolling backwards again a breath later, a goblin-spider the size of a horse finally tearing through and striking earth where I stood scant moments ago. Its coyote face split into rough barking, not unlike the previous laughter. Two oversized fangs dominated that mouth, daggers of bone hanging past the lower jaw line. They dripped venom as it lunged, copper colored vitriol that pooled like quicksilver on the earth before beginning to bubble and smoke. Astonishingly nonplussed, I raised my weapon with Richter-esque arrogance, thumbed back the hammer and pulled the trigger.

Click.

With realization that would have normally left me cold, I remembered our encounter with the Inquisitors in Ward, shortly before I lost consciousness. I had spent two rounds stopping them and had, in the chaos that followed, failed to maintain my most trusted tool. It was amateur and beneath my experience, but totally expectable with how high-strung I had been. It should have also cost me my life.

Turning like a dancer at a noble fete, I pivoted on the tip of one boot, driving the other behind me for support as I bent back. The snapping maw brushed my chest, rotting fur sloughing off and clinging to my tabard. Shifting my grip on the repeater, I punched out before the beast could pull back, curved trigger guard leading. My fist sank into a cluster of rolling green and purple eyes, the barrel and guard-spur tearing and blinding as the creature howled once more, this time in agony.

Mad with pain, the head swung away, nearly tearing my weapon from my hand. Unexpectedly, it then whipped back, the muscle fusing the canine head to arachnid body knotted with effort, crashing into me with rib cracking force. Already unbalanced from my desperate evasion, I was sent spinning backwards, airborne for a heartbeat before crashing through the rotten trunk of twisted a chestnut.

More red, sticky sap coated my once-blue tabard, along with other unexpected inhabitants of the forest. Beetles, grubs and centipedes had all been torn from the wood in my flight. These were scavengers feasting on the rotting hulk of the Golga, now trying to burrow into my clothes and hair.

For a moment, my composure wavered, hands desperately brushing away the writhing things as they squirmed and bit at my face and neck. A movement above reminded me of my plight, another jackal-headed monster tearing through the branches, along with a cadre of his smaller siblings raining down from all angles. The repeater hit the earth with a hollow thump, a muted reflection of its empty cylinder. My saber rang free as the beast fell upon me.

I rolled forward as the twisted spider struck, its own momentum driving more than a span of ragged steel into its bony abdomen. I kept the sword upright as I dove, tearing a jagged gash to commemorate my path, spilling more white putrescence on my shoulders, adding to the mélange of unthinkable things clinging to me. Richter would be beside himself, I was sure.

I ignored the howls and flailing of its death throes as I popped up behind it. Shedding filth as it whistled through the glowing mist, my blade worked out a kata, known to my masters as the Eye of the Maelstrom. High and low, forward and back I spun the blade, the glitter of steel drown in each new baptism of ichor. Spider after spider fell away, missing limbs or chunks of hide, screaming in pain or chittering with frustration. But even as I dealt blows right and left, I was forced to give ground, stumbling over ichor and corpses.

Cracking branches heralded the arrival of more massive goblin-spiders. As I turned to cleave another rat-headed horror, a spider the size of a mastiff charged, driving me to the ground. The saber spun from my grasp, point first into the earth, surprisingly close to the puddle of spider entrails that threatened to foul the repeater. The abomination’s fangs drove into my shoulder, tearing through leather and steel plating.

Searing agony as those teeth broke the flesh of my arm, blistering it with caustic copper poison, forcing a cry to my lips. The shield of calm and focused rage had evaporated, leaving my soul gutted with terror. I could feel the impacts on the soil as other goblin-spiders jockeyed for position, trying to angle past the beast that pinned me to the earth. With but a shake of its head, my shoulder would be broken or torn free, and I would be food for the host about me. I could see Death in my mind’s eye, reptilian jaws wide.

No, I swore to myself, an echo of that cold fury wresting control, I will not go gently into that good night. I freed the short blade strapped to my wrist, driving it into the thick fur around the spider’s neck. A finger length of steel bit into the monster’s throat, then slid from my gore-slicked fist as the beast inhaled with pain. I had fully expected it to tear my arm from my body in retaliation, leaving me crippled and easy meat. Instead it reeled backwards, coughing and choking on metal, too preoccupied with its own demise to maim me.

With their larger sibling out of the way, the smaller spiders were on me in a trice. I rolled about like a man afire, flailing my arms to drive the chittering nightmares from my face and crushing them beneath my bulk. Needle-like teeth tore at my armored clothing, corrosive saliva seeking my flesh. Still, against these lesser punctures, the hardened auroch leather held firm, though it began to hiss and disintegrate under the venomous onslaught.

Through the steaming innards of the gutted goblin-spider I spun, soaking myself once more with the milky substance that passed for blood. With a metallic clank and rigid stab in my side, I felt the repeater as I rolled over it. One swinging arm adjusted course to snatch up my weapon, seizing it by the cylinder and using it as a club.

I kipped to my feet a moment later, repeater in my off hand hammering left and right, driving away horrors the size of dogs and cats as they tried to maintain their purchase on my body or clamber up my legs. Giving ground again, my other hand found the grip of my saber as I slid backwards beneath the tide of spiders. Into the twisted weave of rotting, fungus-laced undergrowth I stumbled, armored leather smoking with innumerable corrosive bites. I felt my footing shift and twist beneath me, earth crumbling and breaking away. I fell to my back for what seemed the thousandth time, expecting the swarm to bury me once more.

Instead, I struck only a thin, brittle lattice of dead roots and thready purple growth, my weight tearing through and leaving me tumbling through the void.

For one long, torpid heartbeat, I was falling free, air on all sides. Above me, the blighted canopy stretched, not a hint of star or moon. I rolled slightly, tucking the repeater close while keeping my sword wide, dangerous edge away from my body.

I struck soil, injured shoulder first, pain blooming like cherry blossoms behind my eyes. The precipice had not been the edge of a sheer drop, but the tip of a rough- cut ridge. My momentum was undeterred as I slid and bounced my way down the slope of earth, white-knuckle grip on my weapons and spiting expletives with each new blow to my acid-ravaged shoulder.

After a bone-jarring, fathomless slide through dirt and rock and dead, thorny scrub, I finally rolled to a halt at the base of what was once a tumtum tree. I ached, through and through, my shoulder screaming the loudest of all. Part of me wanted to roll over and die, let exhaustion and pain overcome me at last. Another portion of my thoughts questioned, quite madly in retrospect, what a wreck I must appear, coated in seven layers of different filth, hair askew and rife with twigs and insects, no? Richter would be appalled.

Both voices were mere whispers, however, as that cold, driving anger returned. Battered as I was, that fury gave me focus, strength enough to pull myself to my feet and keep moving. Another gem from my days as a philosopher came back to me, a dull mantra to match my inexplicable drive: agony is merely the forge of valor, driving out the impurities of cowardice. It was an imperfect comparison, but the best I could make.

I slid the saber home and let my hand find purchase on the tumtum’s knobby bark. Rising, I broke the repeater open, ignoring the brass casings as they tinkled off my boots and into the loam beneath them, and began to thumb fresh rounds in their place. I eyeballed the backs of each new cartridge as I loaded, making sure they were still whole and free of filth and debris. A few had to be returned to my belt, too foul to be trusted for now, but I managed to find six that I could reasonably trust to fire when called upon.

I could hear the cries of the goblin spiders again as I locked the repeater together and returned it to its scabbard. Surely they had found my trail again, and were even now gamboling down the slope, gibbering with hunger. Shaking my battered limbs briefly, I began to sprint away from the howling, choking back the aches of bruised bone and strained ligament.

I wove erratically through the trees, without fixed destination. Indeed, there was none that I could have, all sense of direction lost, leaving only the vague notion that the spiders stood between myself and freedom. I plunged onward, legs pumping and breath ragged, determined to make good my new lead on this monstrous pursuit. Hesitation, even to only regain my bearings, was a nonexistent luxury.

More claw-like branches hung before me, seeming to bend and snatch, seizing at my limbs to arrest my flight. I ducked and spun, and where finesse failed, force bridged the gap, sending splinters raining in my wake. The serpentine roots beneath my feet seemed to shift, depriving me of my footing and causing me to stumble and stagger. Each fall to the earth became a somersault or painful handspring. My poor, ravaged limbs wept in protest, but I could not be made to care. I was on a roll.

Looking back on it, I could never be sure if the forest itself truly animated to stop me. Pain, delirium and tunnel vision are not conducive to clarity.

Slowly, the wails faded behind me, tinged with the bitterness and frustration of failure. Hungry and angry as they were, it seemed they could not find my trail. Perhaps the repeated baths of soil and muck and spider innards left little trace of my own scent to track. My gut-spattered face slowly began to split, into what I have to assume was a horrifying half-grin. I was in the clear, the worst behind me now.

I should have remembered my earlier anger at Richter, about never questioning worse.

With pursuit lost, I slowed my stride, seizing hold of my breath as I trotted along. Presumably, now that I had lost any clue of how far into the Golga I was, the only recourse I had was to travel as straight a path as possible until I reached another border and escape. Finding Ialae, now that I had lost even my own trail, seemed as distant a thing as the lights of the stars or the depths of the sea. More than likely the goblin-spiders or something more fell has seized and devoured my reluctant charge. This was over before it began, I said to myself, it’s time to admit it and get out of here..

The anger that still lifted my legs and sharpened my focus recoiled at that thought, writhing against me. It struggled against my own will like a living thing, tearing itself free of a snare. Whatever had happened, it seemed I had become a house divided in truth, and not merely a conflicted mind in a crisis of conscience. I could not be certain if I was merely going mad, fracturing under this newfound pressure, or if I was truly bedeviled in some way.

My choice was an impossible one. I could suppress this new principle, along with the ferocity it offered, and try to fight my way free of the Golga, spent and broken, while simultaneously trying to win my inner war. On the other hand, I could embrace the impulse, and somehow appease its demand for both sacrifice on Ialae’s behalf and survival on my own. More likely, I would rage against this accursed, violet lit hell until I finally fell, buried beneath the corpses of my killers, like the defenders of this wood so long ago.

Frustrated, and for the second time in what was most likely the same day, I found myself driving my gloved fist into the trunk of one of the Golga’s long dead residents. This time, part of me had the presence of mind to bite down preemptively, stifling any verbal outburst with a trickle of blood from my lip. I slumped to my knees, blankly staring at my trembling hands. My eyes began to focus, finding something of more immediate interest in the condition of my gauntlets.

Aside from milky spider gore and rotting loam, something new had found purchase on the knuckles I had driven into the nearest tree. Thick, clingy tufts of fiber hung in patches and strands from my gauntlet. Looking up, I saw the same thick ropes wrapping every fungus-ridden timber, from highest bough to lowest bole. After an eye-blink of staring dumbly, the reality of what filled the surrounding forest and coated my hand truly was.

Webbing, goblin-spider silk, clearly marking this as the nest of the abominations.

I had, it seemed, kept walking as I held the debate between the virtues of valor and self-preservation on the senate floor of my mind. Wherever I knelt now must be close to the heart of the Golga’s corruption, the spiders lairing near to bask in that necrotic radiation. Two thoughts struck me simultaneously. The first hissed, once the spiders give up their hunt for me, this shall surely be where they return. The second insisted, just as strong, if Ialae or her remains are to be anywhere, it would be here, in the heart of darkness.

Shrugging at the serendipity of my situation, I rose once more, stumbling forward on aching legs. Either way, I had to move, to escape or to explore, and perhaps both could be satisfied. I tottered unsteadily, rage no longer fueling my stamina, but not struggling against me either.

I wandered onward, the white and stillness surrounding me made the forest feel like the grove of Yggdrasill in the heart of winter, the silver and blue will ‘o wisps replaced by that omnipresent amethyst wytch-light. It could have almost been peaceful, if not for the same feeling of perpetual rotting death that pervaded the rest of the woods being double-thick here.

Avoiding the spots where cords of webbing crisscrossed enough to block progress, I found myself suddenly breaching the tree line, on the crest of another ridge and a sudden, abnormal clearing. Peering through the mist that swirled at my ankles and filled the bowl below me, I could just make out a shape below, brooding motionless and massive. More carefully this time, I descended through the haze and into the basin, to arrive at the foot of what stood in this sunken grave.

Terror made manifest.

In form itself, it was nothing more terrible or dreadful than I had heretofore seen in my life. Indeed, it might be considered mundane based on physical quality alone. But what met the eye and what struck the heart combined in an expression of perfect horror.

It was, it seemed, a tree, dead and broken like all the others of the wood, unique only in its alarming size and secondary characteristics. Its bark was as pale as sun-bleached bone, so pure and bright it seemed to glow. Around its base was spread a thick, rolling carpet of glowing lavender slime and dead, withered leaves of a remarkably similar hue. The base of the dread tree held the wellspring of that shimmering infestation, an open wound that wept spores in steady, thick discharge.

The bark about that gash was incised with broad, black runes that stung to look upon, so dark they seemed to be burns in the very fabric of life. Holding the gap open was a blade, broad as my hand and long as my arm, wrought whole out of midnight obsidian. Its double-handed grip was wrapped in pale, fringed leather and capped in tarnished silver. It could only be a wytchknife, the tool of a necromancer.

The final touch on the macabre scene was the fruits of this poisonous tree. Cocoons hung from branches high and low, most split and their contents little more than rotting husks. As the tree fed the spiders, for this had to be the nexus of the Golga, it seemed that the spiders also feed the tree. How it dined upon them, however, was beyond my ken.

In all, it would have been a dark and unsettling place, but not incongruous to the still corpse of the woods around it. Here, however, that same, primal fear that hung as heavy as the fog was no mere ambient emotion, but an omnipresent force, like an unending scream. Perhaps that feeling throughout the woods had always been this thing, merely slumbering, awake and hungry now that I trod upon its holy ground.

It struck me like a hammer blow, driving me to my knees and the breath from my lungs in one, choking cough. I felt my heart slam against my ribs, throbbing so hard and so unsteady as if to tear free. Tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes as horror, entirely unnatural and unreasonable terror tore through me like a lance of winter’s ice. Fear of death, fear of pain, fear of loss…fear of fear itself.

I could hear screaming, incoherent and wordless, echoing through the black orchard. It took me an eternity to realize they were my own. I would have torn my own eyes out, in a futile attempt to stop the endless visions of despair, but my hands shook too badly to pull them from their grip at my stomach. I could feel my mind eroding under that unceasing onslaught, like a pile of sand in a strong wind.

My eyes lifted one last time as I collapsed completely, falling from my knees to my belly as I rolled in shrieking misery. Motion caught my gaze then, one cocoon twisting and gyrating in time with my own writhing. Beneath that dangling bundle, nearly buried in that sea of purple rot, was the dull gleam of a black iron blade.

Ialae.

The all-devouring disquiet must have been ravaging her as it did me. I can only imagine the panic it must have engendered, as she hung in that cloying, lightless sarcophagus of silk. Somehow, my shaking fingers pried themselves from my midsection, one hand slapping to the grip of my saber, the other crawling across my thigh to the repeater. Even that small a gesture of will, of defiance, sent renewed waves of panic through my mind, as that mad force tried to crush me like an ant.

Somewhere, far in the distance, a howl sounded, ringing out above my own cries. Certainly it is the goblin-spiders, my fear-addled mind tried to insist, called home by their terrible god. The timbre, the quality of that baying, however, was markedly different. This was not the high pitched yipping and chortling of hyenas and coyotes, but the low, sonorous clarion of a wolf. It came again, louder and closer: inside me now, a battle cry, a song of war.

The fury swept back into my heart, no longer cold and measured, but a bottomless well of blazing force. Like an underground stream of earthfire, molten rage poured through my veins, pushing back the terror to the dark corners of my soul where such things normally dwelt. For a moment, I could feel that icy, crippling force begin to rally, to flood my mind with so much fear as to leave me broken and witless. As it had before, the anger provided a wall, pain washing over and around and away, breaking itself on the rock of my mind.

Suddenly free and so full of outrage I could not unclench my jaw, I pulled myself to my feet. A breath later, my saber was free, its slightly loose fittings rattling in the tension of my double-handed grip. I readied myself to step forward and swing, to fell the loathsome thing in one, wild stroke. Then, impossibly, the tree spoke.

“Hast thou finally come to release me, Jawed-god?”

The words rang not in my ears, but in my thoughts, in the tone of every word I had ever spoken or heard spoken in fear or doubt. It was simultaneously a crying child, a dying man and an abandoned lover, and all the things between. Part of me registered confusion, not knowing how to respond, and unable to communicate through the wall of rage. The voice continued, heedless of my lack of reply.

“Who better, amongst all mine brothers and mine sisters, than he who cannot be fed? He who, even in our surrender, took the hand of the one who chained him? Free me from this mockery and let me slip into the grey, I beg thee.”

There was a pregnant pause, as if the tree desired my response. I struggled to give it, to question who or what it thought it was addressing, what this nightmare saw in me. But still, I could not force tongue and teeth to craft words, though the fury had cooled enough that was no longer poised to throw myself at the pale and twisted thing before me. So I simply stood, in bizarre standoff between myself and the broken, bleeding entity. I could feel the eye of its will, staring intently at me, gauging my lack of response. Finally, after timeless moments, it spoke again.

“I see. There is no intention in thine presence here this day. Like I, when I fell beneath the boots of the Black One, thou hast fallen to slumber. Thou comst not to slay me, but snap and snarl in the midst of a dream.”

Though the tone was the same, that of amalgamated terror, it was… softer, a whisper laced with sorrow in the horror.

“I cannot wake thee, broken as I am. Save for the blood of the willing, I doubt any force could stir thee from such as this.” There was a sound in my head, like a sob. “If thou cannot bestir thyself enough to release me, then begone, lest thy thrashings pain me further.”

I felt the eye turn from me, the echoes of fear fading away, leaving a numb stillness, beckoning me to take my leave. Slowly, the rage fell back, notch by notch, cooling to a simple honed edge. Stepping forward, my blade spun out in a lazy arc, high instead of low, steel parting the cord of silk holding Ialae aloft with sharp snick. Another light stroke, and the cocoon parted, revealing the knight, pallid, unconscious and battered. I lowered two fingers to her throat, and found a shallow heartbeat.

I was not about to push my luck and wait for her to revive. I could only hope the knight was strong enough to survive being carried out of this cursed wood as fast as I was able. Then, if she still would not stir, hopefully Richter could be found to work his craft. It would have to be enough.

The rest of my travel through the Golga remains a foggy, disjointed collection of senseless memory. I do not recall seeing the goblin-spiders again as we wove through the twisted maze of ruined forest. Indeed, if we had, I doubt we would have lived. Perhaps we were being lead again, out now rather than in. Instead, I did battle with pain, exhaustion and a myriad of chaotic questions that assailed my mind and wore away at my waning focus, each step forward a victory in some greater internal duel.

Somehow, the trees began to thin, then vanished into a line of asheri, these marking the northwest corner of the Golga. I turned slightly, feeling the warmth of the setting sun for the first time in what seemed to be a lifetime. I smiled, feeling my lips crack with dehydration. I laughed, a sound less like mirth than the croaking death rattle of some decrepit beast. I crumpled, feeling as torn and empty as a punctured waterskin, into blessed, dreamless darkness.