…and roared the manticore

Book III, Wyrmwitch

Chapter 15: The Hive

The door in the mountain loomed over them, while the mountain reared higher yet. The door, carved of foreign starmetal and embossed with fanciful depictions of the valatrokos, stood shut and silent. The six waited, momentarily silent, deposited there by the twins’ teleportation from Bastaloch.

“So, that’s what they look like. One nested beneath Ankothmor my whole life and I never knew,” said Vossburg.

“An artistic interpretation, these carvings. No, the vala are not renowned for their beauty. Their power comes from their stillness. Their denial of the arcane. This is why the masters brought them from beyond,” said Drusilla.

“The titans of heaven, out of galaxies beyond our reckoning,” said Ancilla, placing a hand on the iridescent metal and pressing her cheek against it briefly. “These are doors through which giants passed.”

Sieglinde grunted. “You sound as though you worship them. These things that came with the invaders and helped to subjugate humanity.”

Ancilla turned from the door to face Sieglinde.

“I know our views differ, and I did not choose the shape and manner of Earth’s conquest. But archons are raised to revere the valatrokos. There are none closer in spirit and duty than archons and vala. They were to be the shield, and we, the spear. A bulwark against the ancient evil,” said Ancilla.

“Nevertheless,” said Sieglinde, “the Voidborn found some gaps in your defenses. Do you know what I do when my shield is useless and my weapon has been broken?”

The twins regarded her silently.

She grinned a toothy smile. “I fight with my fists.”

Cormac sighed. “Please, Linde. We’re all on the same side now. They may be the last archons, and the last valatrokos may be waiting inside. We need them, and we may need it.”

“And without us, there is no path to the valatrokos,” said Drusilla.

Sieglinde softened and shook her head. “I know. And you’ve done a great service helping my people. But seeing this place, it reminds me of the old days.”

“And it’s never easy taking up arms with your enemies,” said Ancilla. “But we truly believed in the virtue of our cause. All the rest was not our concern, only guarding against the incursions. And preventing their outbreak. We were the first born, sacrificed to become beacons of the light. The valatrokos sacrifices of itself—its children—to seed the world with stillness. And, yes, we failed.”

Silent until now, Anais stepped forward.

“I never knew the truth of what they were guarding us from. I served, yes, but I had my doubts. Until I saw the corruption at Ankothmor. And now I think the masters never stood a chance. That all these sacrifices came to nothing,” she said.

Drusilla nodded mournfully, as Ancilla hung her head. “Unless our dear bulwark resides within. So it might be willing to offer itself up as the final sacrifice beside me and my sister.”

“Even if they come to nothing, at least we fought,” said Sieglinde, moving to embrace Ancilla.

“Well, best not dally, with friends waiting on our swift return,” said Cormac. “Unless you intend to beat this door down with your fists, Linde, would someone kindly show us the way in?”

Drusilla nodded. “I will open it. But know that this is only the entrance. The lair itself is much deeper below.”

Slowly, the door began to glide open, dust falling from the groove above the massive slab. Drusilla stood, arms held out in front of her, directing immense kinetic energies to open the titanic vault barrier.

As the six began to enter the door set in the mountain that was a nest to the titans from beyond, Anais stopped to observe the mountain range behind them, the sun in the clear blue sky. Turning, her eyes alighted on the remaining protrusion of bulkhead door, with its silent guardians cast in glittering, metallic immortality.

Titans so grand, yet they could not shield us from the darkness within. They did not know what to guard us from, she thought.

Like the doors of a tomb, in perfect splendor but hiding utter emptiness. We should leave here.

Our sacrifice here, like all the rest, will come to nothing.

Vossburg shouted back to her. “Are you coming?”

Anais regarded the stillness, something she could sense but not see. Denial, she thought, the perfect name for such silence. Not a true solution, but one that lets the corruption fester out of sight.

She shivered, and started forward into the nest.

“Yes, wait for me, Voss. Stay close to me, will you? Place is creepy.”

Vossburg chuckled, but waited, shotgun in hand. “You’re damn right it is. But we’re in and out. We’re on a mission, not a social visit.”

“That’s good,” said Anais, trying to laugh, but shivering violently from the creeping chill up her spine, “because this might be the loneliest place I’ve ever been.”

. . . . .

Sieglinde strode into the ornate hall leading to the vast ground floor of the subterranean nest, as Cormac wheeled himself beside her.

“Marvelous, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Cormac. If only all the world could have been rendered so beautifully at their coming, but such sights were never meant for us.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said.

White and blue marble, with more of the iridescent metal gilding, lined the floors and walls, while the ceiling was carved from the mountain itself and supported by marble pillars threaded with silver spirals. At the end of the grand entrance, silvery light emanated from electric torches, illuminating a vast cavern chamber lined by more pillars. Beyond an inlaid metal carving of a valatrokos on the floor, the marble flooring ended in a sharp and sudden drop. Dominating the entire center of the chamber, a massive pit opened in the floor, drawing all eyes to its inevitable and precipitous descent.

Sieglinde heard the massive barrier sliding back into place, and she heard Vossburg remarking at his surroundings.

“Looks like the temple of last light. Only the hole is bigger.”

“Deeper, too, no doubt,” said a voice echoing in the cavern. “Best watch your step, visitors, for the fall is not survivable.”

A man in grey robes appeared from an alcove across the pit, above which a rainbow of colored lights glistened. He made his way slowly around the pit, which offered no banister nor barrier to prevent one from slipping into the interminable depths. And slip, one might, for the polished floor shown like glass. Sieglinde felt grateful it was not actually slick.

“Welcome to the temple under the mountain, home of the revered valatrokos. I am Keeper Oswald, watcher of the highest tier,” said the old man.

He stood before the six, head bald, long grey beard hanging over his robes.

He looks to be a hundred-years-old, she thought.

“I’ve not had visitors here for a long time. Has the time come, am I to be replaced? But, no, you do not all dress as servants of the masters out of space and time. But one of you holds the arcane spark to move the door. And to know of this place.”

“We do, honored keeper,” said Ancilla.

“The twins of the City of Flame,” said Drusilla.

“So, does the Conclave need a new vala?” His voice croaked in the cavern, hoarse from seldom use.

“No, for Ankothmor has fallen, taken by the Void. They have returned, Oswald. The Voidborn spread like a plague over the world. A wonder they have not come here, as this continent bore their full incursion,” said Ancilla.

Oswald coughed and sputtered, and swayed on old legs. “Oh, oh, my. What awful tidings you bring to this sacred place.”

“We are defenders of Bastaloch, where some of the survivors rally to fight the threat. Ill news, indeed, but this is not the end,” said Sieglinde. “I am Sieglinde, and this is Cormac. Of the Dragon tribe out of the European wastelands.”

“This is Vossburg, and I am Anais. Lost Souls Brigade out of Ankothmor.”

“And two archons. Prime ascendant. What brings such a strange and varied band to the temple?” said Oswald.

“We need to enlist the aid of the vala,” said Vossburg.

“Bastaloch’s shield has fallen, but its guardians remain. With a new shield, we might hold out. Earth has returned momentarily to humanity’s possession. We mean to keep it from slipping into the Void forever more,” said Drusilla.

“Is that so? Well, I have not prepared for such an occasion. Perhaps, no replacement will come for me. Perhaps, I am the last keeper of the heights, as each keeper at each tier is the last. Well, the rites must be observed. The path must be followed, as every time before, especially if this is the final descent.”

“It is urgent, sir. One of the vala must come with us, please,” said Anais.

“Wait, know this. The rites must be observed, the path of supplication must not be ignored. Know this, keepers watch the temple but we do not keep it, our glorious bulwark. And know that the vala gives of itself. Self-replication. Hive refers to its mind, not a swarm of its ilk in the abyssal warrens, below here. Far, far below here. We make the descent, as all times before, to prepare you for its domain. And if it wishes to come with you—for you must entreat it, not me—it will make the decision and you must abide its answer.”

Oswald clasped his hands and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

“We come to you, Keeper Oswald, as supplicants to the great vala of distant dreams. To entreat its aid,” said Ancilla, kneeling before the keeper.

“Yes, yes, so you do. Follow me. Mind your step as we round the pit. Down we go, but not that way, No, never that way.”

The elderly man shuffled toward the alcove. As Sieglinde passed by, she cast her gaze into the depths. So deep, no light touched its bottom. The pit glided down, with smooth sides, into shadow. But something waited for them down there.

“Do you feel it, sister? Here, the shield is barely a whisper.”

“Yes, Dru. Not a whisper though, but a deafening silence.”

One by one, the six filed into the passage beneath the glowing rainbow array. And so, they began their descent.

. . . . .

The spiral passageway sloped down into the mountain, blessedly step-less for Cormac’s sake.

“I wonder, if this had been a staircase, would we have dropped you down the hole?” said Sieglinde.

Cormac chuckled. “I’d have preferred to remain above.”

“Hush, visitors. The approach to the tier of penance must be traversed in silence. Reflection is your mandate. To search inside yourself for solutions to the sin you carry. For not a one of us approaches the vala without some measure of degradation. So, you must hone your awareness for the first rite. What have you done to allow darkness into this world? What have you done to darken the lives of others? What guilts or sorrows do you carry that weigh upon your soul? Prepare to unburden yourself.”

“That was a long-winded response for the quiet time,” said Vossburg. Though he tried to whisper, his voice carried down the passage.

Oswald grunted his disapproval, while Anais tried to stifle a giggle.

Cormac held tightly to the bars outside his wheels, easing the speed of his descent. Already, he felt the strain building in his arms, as the muscles flexed with the effort. But he turned his mind to penance, as directed by their guide.

He had been guilty of hopelessness at his situation. Having been maimed by the Voidborn, he had wanted to die. Without legs, he had lost the ability to fight—or so he had thought. But with his warp magic, and the harness, he and Sieglinde has become a destructive duo.

Don’t lie to yourself, whispered the shadows. You still want to die. You are a weight upon her, a burden to detract from her own performance. She protects you, because you cannot protect yourself.

No, he thought. I’m glad to be alive, to carry out the war another day. I am not broken, only changed.

But without your magic, what remains? A mangled sack of flesh. Down below in the silence of the nullifying aura, what remains to you, Cormac?

Hope, he thought. I am more than a mage. And I love Sieglinde, dragon daughter, my warrior queen. My partner in the last battle against the greatest foe we’ve ever faced. We face the Void together.

But how can she love you when the war is finished?

Because no matter your doubts, our feelings are true, he thought.

Though he denied the words, he pondered what it told him as the passage began to level out. Warmer air flowed along the smooth stone tunnel, and pale lights glistened ahead of the party in single-file.

“Now, you know the reason for silence. We are silent so we may heed the words of the voice we wish not to hear. Only you may hear it, that which speaks from the darkest reaches of your heart. The darkness we each carry within ourselves,” spoke Oswald softly.

Barely a whisper, but his voice carried in the quiet dark.

“And now, at the tier of penance, I give you over to Keeper Priscilla.”

. . . . .

Led by Keeper Oswald, the party filed into a domed chamber carved in the rock. Oswald stood in the center, beneath white lights like those on the top—although dimmer.

“Keeper Priscilla, I bring visitors. Come, greet them.”

A woman shuffled out of an adjoining chamber, clad in the same grey robes—if somewhat shabbier—as Oswald.

“Yes, I heard the weighty whispers of stricken souls descending. Rest, Oswald. Thank you for delivering them to me.”

Oswald made his way to a stone bench carved into the wall and sat down with a wheeze.

“Oh, I am weary, Priscilla. The shadows these six carry weigh upon me, as they will upon us all. Ah, closer to the silence now. I feel it. I know it, I will not return to the surface.”

Ancilla, troubled by the exchange and the journey thus far, stepped forward.

“You may all come with us when we leave here. As we told Oswald, the Void has come. There will be no more visitors. This will be the last descent into this temple. We wish for the vala to join us in our last stand,” she said.

“Discarding ritual is not welcome here. If the world should succumb, what have we left to cling to except ritual? The rites are sacred, ensure order,” said Priscilla, uttering a small, hollow laugh. “Without them, we give ourselves to chaos. Now, tell me, girl, who are you, and what do you offer as penance?”

“I am Ancilla, and here is my sister, Drusilla. We are the last of the archons, who have been taken by the Void. Our penance is shame, and suffering, until we die.”

“Last of the archons, truly? And how do you stand here today? Why you, and not your brethren? It seems, perhaps, part of the shame you carry is because you did not succumb along with the rest of your order,” said Priscilla.

Drusilla reached out to clasp her sister’s hand; Ancilla squeezed, grateful for her touch.

“There is no shame in surviving, only guilt. And sorrow. Our bond surpasses even the light. We are soul-bound, life-linked. Though our fellow archons fight for the Void, we oppose them, and beseech the vala to aid us.”

“The penance for blasphemy is blood-letting, archon or no. When you’ve filled the chalice, we may go. But spill not a drop. To further reflect on your sins, we walk in darkness. I am blind, so it doesn’t bother me. But hold tight to each other, and your offering.”

Priscilla produced a dagger and a chalice from her robes and handed them to Ancilla.

“Worry not, dear. The vala from the dreams regards us all in equal measure. And for some, the only penance is pain.”

. . . . .

Pain and sorrow pulsed along the unseen bond carried between the twins. Drusilla felt her sister’s suffering and knew it as her own.

Hold tight, dear sister. They mean to test us, as ritual demands, so that we must stand before the vala exposed and raw.

What if it’s gone, Drusilla? What if they have come and turned it against us? Have you considered this?

I have. If we must, we will cleanse this place.

The keeper’s voice rattled out of old lungs.

“Memory is born in darkness. As were we all. And the world, too. We approach the tier of memory as vessels. Lightless specters, awaiting the blinding glare of memory. Sightless, until memory wakes us.”

The keeper spoke in a low monotone, as creeping as her gait, as she shuffled along the descending passageway, deep in the mountain now.

Drusilla stepped carefully behind the old woman, wary of tripping on her trailing robes. Behind her walked Ancilla, then the others, with Cormac wheeling himself at the end of the line.

“Down through the ages, memory fades. As does the light. As we fade to dust. And nothing.”

Had Priscilla been old? Or younger? Drusilla tried to picture the woman’s face she had seen so recently. But she struggled to recall that visage glimpsed briefly in the twilight of the penance.

“Memory dies in darkness. But truth festers even out of sight.”

Warmth ebbed gradually into the chill of the caverns. Water trickled somewhere, echoing softly. Carried on the warm breeze, ushered from somewhere far below, Drusilla smelled dirt, the almost sterile crisp subterranean air. But life, too—the aromas of moss or fungus flourishing in the underground. And something else, something at the bottom of all things—an undercurrent so faint she almost couldn’t place it. A slight whiff of decay. But then, it faded.

“The keepers have tended the truth. The vala came out of horizons beyond our fathoming. The memories say they led the host then. But after the ancient cataclysm, of which scant memories remain—they hid themselves in shame. For they had meant to carry the light out of the cosmos, so that humanity might haul itself from the dark. But they mistook the shadows for an abyss.”

Welling, heaving darkness washed over Drusilla and her companions. The bond between the two sisters weakened. Faintly, her sister called to her: Where are you, twin? Where are we? Where is she taking us? Why have we come here.

The memories are fading, sister. But if Ancilla received the thought, she could not discern in the weighty and stifling black shroud of true utter lightlessness.

As if from across chasms of infinite depth, aeons in its passage, her sister sent a message: I need the light. I want to see.

We can’t. Don’t you sense the veil? Stronger here.

The darkness held, but the keeper’s voice rose, shouting: “A clash of luminescence! A flame, a flame! Of man’s heart, light of the soul! Passed down by gods. And a spark, a star, a fallen star! Of cosmic radiance, luminous blinding infinity! Carried by dreamers, who come from beyond gods, beyond memory.”

The sudden increase in the volume of Priscilla’s litany startled Drusilla, shook her, sent shivers through her. Trailing one hand behind her, she groped feebly for her sister’s hands.

Something brushed her fingertips briefly. Warm and wet, but ice cold flesh, too.

Oh, Ancilla. My sweet sister.

Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her face. But they could not mar her vision, for her sight was eclipsed by blackest oblivion. Impenetrable, insufferable dark. Clutching at her legs, her arms, her throat—suffocating her. A darkness so thick she couldn’t breathe. Clutching at her long hair. Her hair? But, no, she’d shorn her locks in grief and madness. Beneath that shroud of interminable, intoxicating despair.

Again, Priscilla’s shouting boomed in the underground. The way her voice carried, and bounced off distant walls, Drusilla perceived that the passage had widened. The slope leveled out, and the spiral—always to the left—straightened.

“The vala mistook the shadows cast by the flame of man, which was the distilled essence of the gods—their guardians—for an emptiness. A hollow to be filled. Such was their goal to fill the absence they perceived with radiance.”

The absence of close confines opened the pitch black cavern to the flourishing of distorted, howling echoes. How could a woman so old shout with such undeniable energy? And vibrance. And youth. A voice interred to memory, but resurrected here, in the catacombs of a dead world. A forgotten shrine to forgotten guardians, with halls and spiral arteries awash in the dust of aeons. Carved, not at the world’s birth, but at the moment of its unholy wounding.

Whispers now, drifting on hollow breath:

“A collision of solar and cosmic light. A blinding flash, a radiant cataclysm.”

The steady clank of Sieglinde’s axe and shield meeting and parting, meeting and parting. Tinkling somewhere, far off—distant metallic whisper. Across the chasm. Where they walked, a serpent winding its belly above the abyss. Stone serpent winding, black depths crushing, rock and earth crowding. A steady, but slight squeak, as the wheels turned. Steady, but infrequent in its recurrence. Slow, measured turning—interminable revolutions as Cormac propelled himself. And in the empty grotto, that squeak emerged, magnified as a ghastly squeal.

The Keeper of Penance on the path of memory, shouted:

“Man forgot their covenant, and forsook their guardians. Blinded as they were by the cosmic light! Cosmic truth!”

There, the gasping of struggling lungs. A weeping. A droning—Anais raving to herself. A distant clicking, bone on stone.

“You thought your penance done? You thought memory bright and beautiful?” She sucked in a breath and laughed as a woman in the prime of her existence. “Memory burns, smoldering with forgotten sin. The past is pain—and life after the collapse is suffering. We toil in the death throes.”

One moment, Drusilla hauled herself through the murky, cloying obsidian. A darkness rolling in waves. A pulse, a heartbeat deeper down. A tide rolling over her. Darkness drowning them. Priscilla cackled as the six gasped for air in gulfs of midnight beyond light and memory. Gone, the clank and squeak, the ravenous whisper, the pulse, and rasp of cloth on stone.

“Memory fades, but sin remains.”

Gone, the trickle and echoes. Gone, that sad weeping. In their absence, silence reigned. Breathless and lightless: a vacuum.

Priscilla screamed to fill the silence.

“An aching, gaping wound for all time. The hollow left by a ruptured soul! Ruptured souls of dead gods whose sacred viscera cleaved through time and reality. Whose blood, fallen in trails cut fissures tracing, even now, back to antiquity, bright and shining. Scars, bright and shining.”

The next moment, dazed and reeling. Blasting out of utter darkness, light erupted in a stunning cascade. A luminous staccato, a bright, blistering assault. Drusilla staggered, blinded by the shock of light in the heretofore blackened realm. Laughter roared across chasms crowding the serpent’s stone back, in that lost cavern of antiquity. It came in spurts, like blood from opened veins. The blood of dying gods, so caustic as to carve shrines in undying rock.

“For their sins, there was born a hollow. An absence of light. True darkness. The harmony of chaos. For some mistakes are so grievous and so profane as to extend into the realm of sin.”

Between the falling shadows and the dark-shattering light cascades, Drusilla saw a woman and a man standing on the precipice bordering a flat stone hall set with an altar. Their laughter roared out in a staccato, punctuated by slashes of overwhelming dark and stabs of blinding light.

“We are not afraid to name it here. The Void! The Void!”

A flame, a fallen star—erupting in the shadows. Shadows rising amidst the laughter, so profane as to be unhinged. Blasphemous even. A ruptured soul, an everlasting wound, the hollow of memory, of ruin.

Drusilla crawled toward the light, now pulsing golden and welcoming upon the platform where stood their blind guide with the new keeper.

“Penance paid, and memory burned away. In the blinding light, false light, false dreams,” said the man beside Priscilla. “But you archons remember, don’t you? Somewhere deep down. It’s why you crave the silence.”

He stepped forward and offered Drusilla his hand. As he pulled her to her feet, she reeled and saw her companions crawling along the serpentine. Cormac wheeled himself lazily, mouth slack and eyes glazed. Poor Ancilla crawled on one hand, the other supporting the blood-filled chalice. She trembled violently, scooting her other hand, trailing a bloody smear. Blood sloshed from the chalice and ran down its sides, across Ancilla’s fingers, splashing to the path.

“Help her, Bartuc. The girl performed admirably. Is it any wonder? Archons prime, she and her sister,” said Priscilla in the voice of a woman ready to die. “I’m going to rest now. No going back. Descend to rise, as they say. We. As we say.”

The man who must be Keeper Bartuc kneeled before Ancilla and cupped his hands around her trembling one.

“There, there, ascendant. Let me unburden you. You’re a long way from the surface. A long way from the light.”

He took the chalice and walked away. As he did, Ancilla’s hand slapped down, she crawled rapidly forward, fell on her side on the wide expanse of ground, burst into tears, and hugged herself while shaking with convulsions. Drusilla kneeled and cradled her sister’s head in her lap. She leaned down and kissed her stubbly head.

“Oh, sister,” she said aloud.

She cried as she lifted her sister’s wounded hands, marred and bloody, to her lips. She kissed them. Blood on her lips, tears on the wounds.

“Oh, my sister.”

As the party assembled, Priscilla slumped off to the side, as animate as a corpse. A woman bereft of life, seemingly no longer breathing. But Bartuc had stolen their attention.

He looked young, but bore short silver hair. He grinned as he held the chalice above a basin of stone rising from the smooth, polished floor.

“Archons. The spear seeks the shield. So are the rites laid for your arrival. So are you the key to accessing the greater depths.”

Lifting the chalice to his lips, Bartuc did not drink. Rather, he inhaled the aroma of fresh blood.

“You do not recall the sin, but your blood does. Cast off false light of murdered deities. The taint, the scraps, the rot and ruin.”

Light pulsed, dark bloomed.

He drank. Deeply. Of an archon woman’s blood.

Lips wet with red, he spoke.

“Blood is memory. Blood wells from penance. But memory fades. And only dreams remain.”