A'aron made women and E’blis made men.
This time was the Beginning, before the ages, and women and men were at peace.
As time passed and the World went on, A'aron saw that E’blis had grown distant and strange. She lived and grew in the light of the Great Tree whilst E’blis stood in the shadow and seemed to sicken and wither. Though a shadow, like a mother's womb, can be comforting in its darkness, that which was cast upon E’blis was not.
One day, A'aron stepped into the shadow and felt a sudden sickness assail her. She stepped back out into the light. A'aron now knew there was nothing soothing in the shadow about E’blis as there should have been. It had become a Darkness That Was Not Darkness, and it was poisoning the creator of men.
Looking down upon the World, A'aron saw the first wars being fought there. She saw the women try to stop the men, only to be slain themselves. Animals and creatures were butchered and the Land was soaked with the blood of the fallen. It was a madness that had to be stopped before it brought about the end of the World.
A'aron crossed into the shadow and confronted E’blis. She found E’blis to be greatly changed. Withered, thin, and sick, with the very flesh retreating from his pale bones. A'aron told him what was happening to the World. E’blis merely laughed. A'aron shouted at E’blis and the World was split by the force of it. The first earthquakes and floods began. Many were drowned in the first tempests. E’blis drew a sword and came at A'aron. A'aron tore a limb from the Great Tree and it too became a sword. They fought. And as they fought, the World drowned under its own seas and the land sank from sight.
This was the Age of Water, when everything changed.
It was A'aron who disarmed and defeated E’blis after they fought for thousands of years. But she had taken a mortal wound. Feeling the same sickness creeping through her that had tainted E’blis, she understood at last. Something had fallen through into the emptiness before the World was made and later hid itself away in the shadow of the Great Tree, so as not to be seen. So hidden, it gradually worked its will upon E’blis until the creator of men and his creations were unknowingly bound to It.
A'aron named it the Fallen One: The Darkness That Is Not Darkness.
Knowing that she was dying and that the Fallen One, through E’blis, would consume the World, A'aron knelt over the fallen E’blis and spoke the Words That Could Not Be Undone. Power and strength ebbed from E’blis. He was stripped of divinity and fell onto the fresh land that rose below once the great floods subsided. A'aron, sick from the mortal wound E’blis had inflicted, poured her soul and strength into the sword she had fashioned from the Great Tree and then cast it down so that it might be taken up by those below.
This was the Sword of Sighs, and A’aron lived on through it even as her body fell into the Wood Beneath the Worlds. There, the sickness took her completely. Forever after was she known as Yagga—the Witch of the Woods.
E’blis lived. Though without his old power and strength, he was still bound to the Fallen One. He went into the east to the mountain named Shadowhorn. Ever after, the east was known as the Nightlands. There he abided and waited for many years.
This was the Age of Earth, when A'aron and E’blis fell into the World.
In the Nightlands, E’blis drew men to him. They swore their fealty and E’blis remade them as Fellfolk. They would be led by his lieutenants—the Fallen-born, who endlessly reeked and smoked of His evil. E’blis grew in strength as more men fell under His Shadow. E’blis used his newfound power to create other creatures that would serve Him: Fellhounds, Dionin, Drujja and Malus, the Necrodragon.
His armies gathered, E’blis marched upon the kingdoms of the World in His name. But those who found the Sword of Sighs became known as Keepers of the Flame and they brought hope where E’blis and the Fallen One left only despair. They roused kings and queens to war, leading armies into battle against the hosts of the Fallen One. Steadily, and with great losses, they drove the dark hordes back to the Blackstone Gates at the foot of the Shadowhorn. There, the Keepers of the Flame faced E’blis in mortal combat and all but one were slain by him. She drove The Sword of Sighs into his heart with her last breath. E’blis fell, his body smote upon the rocks of the mountainside.
The peoples of the World then went back to their lands to heal and rebuild. Some feared, though, that whilst E’blis was slain, he was the creator of men, and as long as men lived with the taint of the Fallen One woven deep into their hearts, E’blis could never truly die. This was the Age of Air, when E’blis was driven back into darkness.
The age that is yet to pass is that of the Flame.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sarah came back to herself after what seemed like an aeon. Gazing about in the dark of the chamber, she saw that she was no longer alone. Shapes, stunted and ugly, shuffled through the shadows towards her.
Molloi.
Their rough hair was painted in different shades, and their eyes shone like dim nocturnal orbs as they came towards the Veil. Light glinted off flint axes, spears, and clubs grasped tight in their stubby fingers. Teeth like nubs of stone showed over their grey-blue lips. Sarah stumbled away from them, her mind still spinning from the fury of what she had seen and felt while she was one with the veil. She ran into the dark and they followed, whooping, shrieking, and screaming. She lost her way, finding herself in a closed chamber. Turning, she faced the encroaching creatures. Their eyes gleamed with night light but showed none of the intelligence they once possessed. Snagging fingers flexed around the shafts of spears, and their ugly teeth ground, eager to spill blood and forge a few screams.
Fang was not enough to save her, and the Flame—again, it eluded her.
Damn, I can’t frighten them off with light now, like Ossen said.
But there, pushing through a minute crack in the smooth stone of the wall was a trailing frond of fine white root. Sarah reached for it, grasped it hard between her fingers and called out loud to Gorra, praying he would honour his promise of three years past.
“Thou foot treads soft amidst thy darkening trees, O hear my call whisper on this twilight breeze!”
Silence followed her words. The Molloi, brows furrowed, began to recompose themselves and move in on her once again, clattering their spears and champing their teeth. Then, the wall shook.
The Molloi paused.
Cracks raced across the stone. With a great creaking and crashing, the wall dislodged and fell, raining down on Sarah’s attackers. Out of the jagged wound in the wall came strangling vines and thrashing knotty roots that wound around the throats of the Molloi, hanging them high. Spears were thrown. Crude swords hacked and slashed at the invading flora. In the panic and rush, Sarah dived through the great hole in the wall, away from the chaos, and hurried on alone through darkness, not calling out for fear of bringing the Molloi to her.
But what about Ossen and Jedda? she thought. What if the Molloi come upon them as they’re still sleeping?
“How do I get out of here?”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jedda was already awake as Ossen came to.
“Can’t sleep, either?”
“No,” he said with a harrumph, “bad dreams, something that has never been a problem for me before.”
“The Rosara carna?”
“How did you know?”
“Just because you are a Wayfarer, Ossen, does not make you so different from the rest of us. It’s the golem, isn’t it?”
“Yes ... it is.”
“You gave her a spark of life, only a spark but still it was life all the same.”
“I had to do it to save you from the stake.”
“I know and I owe you my life in eternal debt for what you did. But it still doesn’t feel right, does it? You see her and hear her when you close your eyes. The golem at the stake, burning and screaming. You feel responsible.”
“I do,” he said, sounding more like a tired, old man than he ever had before, “
but she was just a made thing, only dust and moisture, that’s all, barely bound together.”
“Aren’t we all, Ossen? Aren’t we all?”
Their eyes met in the dark. Does he suspect me, Jedda wondered, could he hear me in my dreams as I heard him?
… The Wayfarer will fall …
“Jedda, where’s Sarah?”
Jedda looked over to the bundle by the dead fire. She unrolled it. Empty.
“Where could she have gone?”
“Back to the Veil. Careless child!”
Before either of them could speak another word, they heard whoops, shrieks and the clatter of crude steel echoing from the adjoining chambers. Then, the pounding of many feet coming closer.
A Molloi sprang from the shadows.
Jedda’s short swords flashed out, severing the ugly head from its shoulders. Ossen stood with his staff upraised, sending blazing halos of fire into the marauders.
“This way,” he shouted over the din, “Jedda, after me.”
“Sarah will have to look after herself, for now,” said Jedda, as she followed Ossen, fleeing before the approaching horde, “we’ll be no good to her dead.”
Ossen said nothing in response.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-Nine
She was sure she was going deeper than Ossen ever meant them to go. The streams of water were foul and cold and detritus that had accumulated like silt let off a ripe, rising stench. There was very little light to guide the way, none of the flickering phosphorescent veins. Sarah felt her way through the blackness. Mulch crunched under her feet. Softer clusters and clumps collapsed in on themselves as she trod on them. Sarah could feel the place sucking her in, turning her insides to cool Jell-O, leaving no trace of warmth. Her downward progress was accompanied by the charnel house music of starving rats, and of water seeping through cracks in the smooth walls of the city. It was a long way down, or so it seemed, into the utter darkness that slept beneath the roots of the mountain. Her eyes made out rusted sconces mounted on the walls to either side, set there to light the way for bearers of the dead. All were unlit and had become nests for spiders. As she went further and deeper, she slowed her steps, creeping on as quietly as she could. Even though her eyes were sharp, in this all-consuming penumbra she was as near to blind as she had ever been. With a swift hand, she reassured herself that Fang was still secured at her waist. If there were something other than herself and the sleeping dead down here, she would strike at it first.
Or use the Flame—if she could.
It was then that she saw the light: a pale light coming from not far below.
Keeping her breath steady, knowing she had no other way to go, except to retreat into the howling hordes above, she went on ahead until phosphorescence once again illuminated her surroundings, but there was a tinge to it that was more sickly and diseased than the light cast in the higher chambers and vaults. Three roughly cut tunnels ran away from her until they became dark and unlit once more. Reaching out to touch the shining stone walls, she saw the light was cast by a fungus that had grown thick in the cracks running through the walls. She could make out deeper hollows cut into the tunnels and the embalmed bones that they held. Here, a shattered helm. There, a rusted sword. The dead were sleeping. Nothing here was stirring.
So she thought ... until she heard a wail that was not made by some stray underground wind.
Swallowing hard, Sarah drew out Fang. With her free hand, she scraped handfuls of the shimmering mould from the walls and onto the metal, to light her way. The sound had come from somewhere up ahead, deep within the unlit, farther darkness. Holding her sword angled, ready to strike, Sarah followed the sound into shadow.
Whereabouts she now stood underneath the Mountains of Mourning, she did not know. She was alone and without the Wayfarer. The cold here was not just rising from the ground: it was a part of it, near tangible. She walked slowly, her muscles tense, her heart fast, and her breathing shallow. She could taste fear mingled with hate in the air, like something spoiled lying on her tongue. The toe of her boot struck something soft and meaty on the ground.
It let out a cry in the same tone as the wail she had followed to this place.
She stepped back and raised her sword, illuminating what lay at her feet. She saw a man, or what was left of him: a husk of blackened, corrupted meat that was slowly sloughing off withered bones. The man was dressed in the remains of scaled armour and his eyes were white globules sunk deep into the rotten flesh of his face. A tongue worked feverishly behind browning, toothless gums, aching to speak.
Sarah, wary, leaned in to listen.
And the half-dead man told her his tale.
~ ~ ~
The hall Sarah next came to was as she had expected—ruined and empty with a single long table of stone slabs dividing its centre. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere. She waited patiently at the nearest end of the table until light came. It was a warm light, soft, and seeping in from no place she could see. Before her eyes, the filth of the hall evaporated as if it had never been. Every inch of stone suddenly appeared polished and as smooth as it had once been. And the table was laden with platters of spiced meat, poached fish, sweet fruits and flagons of mead, ale, and rice wine. The smell arising from the feast made her mouth water. She reached out, plucked a ripe, red grape and popped it into her mouth. She bit through the thin skin into the cool, wet, sugary flesh beneath and smiled as she swallowed the morsel.
Some time later, a woman entered the hall.
Sarah’s belly felt like it was full to bursting. She watched as the woman approached. The woman moved without making a sound and seeming to drift towards Sarah, as might a ghost. But she was no such thing. Her snow-white hair tumbled down over her samite robe and Sarah could see that her figure was full and curvaceous. Her eyes never wavered from Sarah, and they were coloured like the dawn, shifting between shades of amber, violet, grey, and clear cerulean. Sarah felt the woman’s hands upon her, and the woman smiled and led Sarah by the hand out through a doorway she had not seen before and into a scented space of hanging silks and pillows that could only be a bed chamber.
Once there, she released Sarah’s hand and took a short step away.
Then she lunged, meaning to have a feast of her own. Her mouth hung open, showing brutish fangs.
Sarah showed the barrow-witch a Fang of her own.
The woman recoiled with a gasp as Fang’s blade sank in. She clutching at her chest and then fell to the ground. Sarah saw a change come upon her and the space around them. She knew that the words of the dying man had been true. She watched as the woman’s beauty withered and receded just as summer turns to autumn and then autumn to winter. Her hair rapidly thinned out into torn, frayed strands. Her skin mottled over. Fine fingers and elegant toes became little more than straggling twigs torn from dead trees. But the eyes, they stayed the same. They never changed, those eyes of dawn. The woman shook, licking her thin lips, gurgling in her throat as Sarah advanced. Tears ran down Sarah’s wasted cheeks as she rested the shining edge of Fang against the woman’s neck.
“How can it be?” the woman asked. “You were in the hall and the spell is strong there.”
“I carry the Flame,” Sarah said. “You know what that means, right?”
The woman gurgled in her throat, nodding fiercely.
Smiling at her, Sarah drew the blade away from her throat and displayed it, turning the blade from side to side. The woman saw how it shone, and it hurt her eyes with its brightness and cleanness. True sobs wracked her and she cowered away.
“Please, don’t kill me, Daughter of the Flame.”
“I don’t mean to kill you if ...”
“Yes, yes, yes?”
“If you tell me the way out of these catacombs and back to my friends. They are in the upper chambers with the Veil of Remembrance.”
The woman snarled and shrank in on herself.
Sarah pressed Fang back against her throat. “You will tell me now, or I will t
ake your head. Your call.”
“Spare me, Mistress. Good girl, good Mistress. I did not know. I would not have tried to feed on you if I had known who you were.”
Sarah took the woman’s trembling chin in her hand and raised her eyes until they met. “You gave me food and drink when I was lost, and I thank you for that. But now, I wish to go, and you will tell me where I need to go to, yes?”
She smiled a cold smile and the woman wept tears of fear as she told Sarah the way out of the lower tunnels and back to the higher halls.
~ ~ ~
Sarah walked for what felt like hours and hours. Her legs ached as she followed the barrow-witch’s directions along passages, through chambers, and up to ledges and crawlspaces. I hope I find the others, Sarah thought, before the Molloi do. Finally, she came out into a smooth passage, much like the ones she had left behind. If I’m not almost there, then I can't be far away, thought Sarah.
Sarah could see gigantic shapes standing around her in the dim light, all formed like men, only as tall as the tallest buildings could be. Their heads resembled those of mighty dragons, tusked elephants, fierce bullocks and sabre-toothed lions. Their unmoving hands grasped blades, axes, and hammers. Beyond them, she could see rusting vats and vast rough-edged openings in the rock walls where iron had once been smelted and formed.
What is this place?
A voice in her head, the same as those she had heard when she was bound up in the Veil, spoke to her.
… These are the Deep Forges. Long ago, the Molloi built the Iron Gods here. And here they are buried because the black fires inside them burn always. Like the Flame, they shall never go out. They sleep beneath the mountains. Waiting to awaken. Dreaming dark dreams of dust, death, and utter destruction …