Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 150-151 (Patreon)

Ch. 150 - Sanctuary

 The first day that Jordan had helped his charges travel east after first traveling to the west, he felt like a moron. Even knowing that something greater was at work, he felt like he’d immediately regret his decision to leave his childhood home. That didn’t change as the house that had always protected him or in any of the chilly days that followed. 

They traveled east for a day, then forded the river before continuing east-south-east toward the coast. Each day was bleaker than the last, and with so many mouths to feed, it wasn’t so long before their food supplies were running low. On the fifth day he brought a deer down with a lightening bolt, just to keep anyone from going hungry. 

He worried that whatever was looking for them might be able to find him from that little spell, but Sister Annise assured him that the darkness couldn’t find them now, no matter what they did. “Besides,” she volunteered. “The evil that haunts this land is too busy tearing apart your manor, even as we sit around this fire.”

“What?” Jordan gasped. “How can you possibly know that?”

“See for yourself,” she said with a shrug, handing him the Book of Ways as she opened it to a page, seemingly at random. “These things are decided well in advance, and neither you nor I can stop them. We are all of us slaves to fate.”

Jordan ignored her often repeated line and instead studied the page, noting with annoyance that it was dominated by a large illustration of the manor house they’d just abandoned. 

It was drawn in red and black, and though it wasn’t impossible that Sister Annise could have done it herself, if she’d been able to see, in this picture, though, it was on fire. That wasn’t the detail that caught his eye, though. 

As he peered closer, he saw a tiny smuggled illustration of a thing near the house. It would have been impossible for the average person to say what it was that the thing was supposed to be. More than anything it looked like an overgrown scarecrow. 

Jordan recognized it immediately, though. How could he not? That hideous tentacled brain had haunted his dreams for years. Of all the sights he’d seen in that pit. That one was the most terrible, and if he hadn’t burnt it to a crisp with coruscating electrical fire, it would have driven all of them insane and made them rip each other to pieces. 

Just thinking about it again after all this time made him remember that terrible paranoia and he turned to the spidery text, trying to gain some insight into what was going on here. What he found was only further horror. 

‘By the second night, less than a half of the inhabitants of Sedgim Manor still breathed. A few had run to the Greywood, but due to the inaucpicious nature of the stars, they turned on each other too in a series of terrible misunderstanding. 

Since they were not directly under attack, none of the survivors understood the danger of baracading themslves into unused rooms to escape the madness. That was folly, for when the metal abomination returned after the fourth sun was set, most of those that were already weakened by its previous assaults succumbed to a number of creative suicides. 

Though most of those with light in their eyes managed to hold on to much of their wits, Britha chose to—’

Jordan tore his eyes and slammed the book closed. What in all the hells did I just read, he wondered. He turned to Sister Annise to ask her, but when he realized her answer would be a repeat of so many others, he thought better of it and opened the book again, searching for the page to examine it further. 

Just like before, though it had vanished. He searched by firelight, and eventually, he found the page he thought it had been, but now the manor had been burned to ruins, and the words no longer described the same thing. Instead, it talked about how quiet the town was now that the survivors had been rounded up and dragged off by the minions of death. 

He shuddered and would have shouted obscenities if he didn’t have the children to consider. “Is this what will happen, or what has happened?” he asked finally.

Sister Annise shrugged. “What you read is the history of now. Whether they happened yesterday or tomorrow is a meaningless question. No matter what say they happen on, they cannot be changed.”

“So I couldn’t save them?” Jordan asked, feeling like he had their blood on his hands. “Not even if I summoned the storm winds? I could be there tonight. I could—”

“If you found a way to raise Siddrim from the dead and channel his full fury on the monsters in the region, you would only delay this,” she sighed. “Our destinies cannot be changed. They have already happened.”’

Jordan flipped to the next page and saw a picture of them sitting around the fire. He read about the conversation he’d just had. 

“The blind prophetess assured the skeptical mage that what has already happened cannot be changed, then, before he could ask her about the god of secrets or the trials to come, she took the book and—”

He didn’t get to finish reading, because no sooner had he read it, then she snatched the book back from him and shut it tight before putting it in her bag. “Hey!” Jordan protested. “I was reading that!”

“You were,” she agreed. “But you should read no further than you have to. Reading too far into the future is bad for the eyes.”

“Trust me, I know,” she chuckled darkly. “Sufficed to say, I have seen enough to know the way, and you shall know it soon as well.”

“What is the tower?” Jordan asked. “And the God of Secrets? You—”

“The tower is where we will find the hermit,” she said blandly. “And all the other questions can wait until we get there.”

Jordan was less than thrilled by the answer. However, what had started as a quiet conversation had become heated enough to attract the interest of the children, and that was enough reason for him to drop it. If he continued, there would be questions, and as brave as these light-eyed kids could be, he had no wish to force the responsibility of how dire their situation had gotten on those who were so young.

. . .

They traveled for two more days and nights before they found the barrier. Well, barrier wasn’t exactly the right word. It was a line in the sand that he sensed as soon as they crossed it, though. 

One second, they had crossed through the thin pine forest and were making their way down a dreary peninsula toward the sea, and the next, they were on the other side of the line, and they could see a small village and, at the far end of the spit of land that jutted off into the sea. Just beyond it, there was a lighthouse, too. 

No, not a lighthouse, he corrected himself: a tower. It was white and elegantly tapered to a conical blue roof that blended with the sky, but it had too few windows for a lighthouse, and the shimmering that emanated from it was not any source of mundane lighting. 

Before he could give much thought to it though, he focused on the fact that it had just appeared out of nowhere. That was far stranger.

“Did you feel that?” Jordan asked, turning to sister Annise. 

“Why would I?” she asked. “I am no mage. The veil barely exists to me.”

“Why would it matter that I’m a mage?” Jordan asked. 

“Because the veil doesn’t exist if a mage isn’t here to power it,” she said with a patient smile as if she was telling someone something they had known but forgotten. “This is why you are the Shepard. Because your flock could never find sanctuary without you.”

Jordan studied her expression, but said nothing as he marveled at her non answer. Until she’d spoken he’d thought that what they’d just passed through was something like an illusion, but her answer implied it was more like a pocket world. Such things possible, theoretically, but Jordan doubted that any ten masters at the Collegium Arcanum could construct a thing like this without divine inspiration from Lunaris or another of the gods. 

For now, all he could do was study the landscape. No one but him seemed to be perturbed by the sudden change. Indeed, the children were more than happy to accept the change and quickly shed their cloaks to enjoy the suddenly sunny weather. 

It would have been picturesque, of course, if the whole scene hadn’t just suddenly changed. If there had always been a village and a lighthouse clinging to the edge of the land while a sea roared in the background, then he would have been sure they’d finally found a refuge. As it was, though, his doubts were thick enough to blot out even the menacing red sun that was only now climbing toward its zenith to chase the grey one that had already moved past it. 

The village, they quickly discovered, was called Landsend, which was evocative, if not particularly creative. They were greeted by the locals more warmly that expected. It only occurred to Jordan after a few minutes of conversation that these people had no idea what was happening in the world outside their little bubble, or whatever this was. 

“You don’t get out much, do you?” he joked at one point. 

“Out?” one of the farmers who’d been handling much of the talking said, “Why would we want out? To leave the veil would be to share its doom.”

“Doom?” Jordan asked, trying to draw out more details. 

He was disappointed, though. Instead, the man shook his head and said, “These are not topics for a farmer. I confess to knowing little and understanding even less. You must speak to Tazuranth; he’ll want to speak to you in the evening after supper, I’m sure of it.”

Tazuranth? Jordan wondered, sure he’d heard that name before. He seemed to recall that someone from the dawn age had such a name, but he had not been particularly interested in the histories and legends of long dead mages, so he could not say precisely what the man was known for, or why someone would want to name themselves after such a figure, but he was sure he there was a reason. 

That question didn’t last long. Soon enough, logistics became more important. There were no spare cottages, but there was a barn that wasn’t used much anymore, and they quickly set to work cleaning and organizing that to create a refuge. They’d eaten almost all their animals, but that did not seem like it was going to be a problem. After all, the village of Landsend was prosperous enough. They had fish, sheep, goats, and cattle, along with several steep step-terraced fields that were full of crops of all types. 

A few years ago, any village in the county might have looked like this. Some would be better, and some might be worse. Now, it was a paradise that they dared not dream of, and for better or worse, it was home for the foreseeable future.

Ch. 151 - Pieces of the Puzzle

 Tenebroum regarded the golden cage full of squirming rats impatiently as it scryed into their flimsy souls. It did not find deceit there, nor even signs that it would normally think of as intelligence. It never did. Instead, it found only fear and hunger-fighting their eternal war against one another. 

“Tell me about Malzekeen,” it commanded again. “In detail this time. Everything that comes to mind.”

“W-we don’t recall details; it’s been much too long for them. They have tried up and blown away.” the rats cried out as one in a keening, squirming chorus. None of them could make whole words, but each of them could make parts of words in a way that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “All we remember are the wrath and ruin… That endless terrible light… Then all of it, everything, and everyone was gone.”

The Lich was uncertain if they were referring to the fate that had befallen the city, or if they were instead referring to the wolf and the worm that it sometimes spoke about instead. The two concepts were almost as entwined in the rat’s mind as it was in various texts that the Lich’s servants had pored through.

“Nothing?” the Lich grumbled in annoyance. “Remind me, which one is wrath and which is ruin?”

“Wrath has the sharpest teeth,” the rats called out, “Ruin’s bite is much slower but even deeper.”

The Lich sighed mentally. I hated dealing with this broken thing. 

It had already found some answers in the mind of its library and more in ancient books in places like Sidddrimar, Constantinal, and Rahkin. It had specialty constructs in those and other places that did nothing but read and remember. Those undead were uncharacteristically thoughtful, and so it had made them uncharacteristically weak to prevent any problems as they sifted through centuries of knowledge, looking for an uncertain number of needles in a variety of different haystacks. 

Its readers were little more than drudges, save that they’d been given the minds of learned men, and their skulls had been sliced open cleanly and hinged on top. This was so that when those minds were full, they could be replaced, and fresh minds could be installed so they might continue their research. 

It had found a number of surprising details so far, but many of them were contradictory. Malzekeen seemed to be both a place and a group of dread gods that may or may not have been from that place. The details were unclear. 

All that everyone agreed on, was that the place was either lost in the northern deserts which were apparently created when Siddrim smote them for their foul ways, or it was off the east coast of the continent, sunk beneath the waves because the Lord of Light had decided that it was so foul to his sight and so irredeemable that it had moved the very world from its place in the heavens to drown them. 

Though the Lich thought that either story was possible, and its presence in both locations was unlikely, it had dispatched servants throughout the area to search for the ancient ruins. Despite those efforts, and the fact that it apparently had one of the survivors in its hands, it still could not find any clues to narrow the search area down further. 

As a last resort, the Lich had brought a caged sample of the larger swarm back to its lair so that it could investigate them more thoroughly in its soul forge, but even that had limited utility. Individually, the rats were simply too insubstantial. 

They required some critical mass to take on the spark of true intelligence. While that was an interesting detail, it was happy to study, no matter how many of the rat souls it had to shred for answers, it did not help Tenebroum find the answer that it was looking for. 

“What of the wolf and the worm then?” the Lich asked again, with growing impatience. 

“What of them?” the rats answered. “They are our brothers, lost to us for all this time.”

“Do you think they yet live?” the Lich asked. 

“Always dying, but never dead,” the rats agreed. “Unless new deities of wrath and ruin have risen to take their place.”

The Lich paused to consider whether or not it qualified as wrath or ruin, but decided again it. It wasn’t sure if it know of course, but it liked to think it would. If things were so broad as that, then surely its eternal avariceness and greed would have long ago stolen Groshin’s power too, wouldn’t it?

If it had to characterize itself, it would give itself the labels of darkness and death more than anything symbolic. Is wrath the same as death in the end, though? It wondered.

It couldn’t say. Instead, it passed along the philosophical question to its library and returned to the topic at hand. “Were you always separate creatures, or were you more than that?”

“My brothers were never far from us,” the rats squeaked. “Not until the Lord of Light burned us to ash and dust.”

“Yes, but as a single entity, or a pantheon, or something else?” The Lich demanded. It was trying to stay calm. When its power raged too out of control, the rat swarm was disrupted and lost almost all ability to speak for a time. It was annoying but only slightly more frustrating than the current quality of answers. 

“We have never been a single entity…” the rats answer with hesitation. “Hunger never applies to only one.”

Somehow it knew that was the wrong answer, but still they said it anyway. That was enough to make Tenebroum worry that the things were trying to be deceitful toward it, but thy seemed to lack the intelligence for such complex lies, especially in small numbers. 

It had figured out one thing though. It was fairly sure that Siddrim had intentionally not destroyed them completely in order to try to imprison those natural evils. This fact tended to argue against Malzekeen being a drowned island somewhere. After all, if the island sank how would they find all the little rat corpses and seal them away in a sarcophagus. 

No, whoever had done this had made sure to have pieces of the dark gods left to imprison so something new wouldn’t rise in their place. That much it could determine without having to ask anyone at all. Tenebroum wished it could get more answers from Sidrrim’s soul on all these things, but it was so long ago that the only answers it had were a smug satisfaction that it had triumphed, which was less than useless. 

It left them there and had a drudge seal the room as it soared off into the night sky beyond its absolute barrier so that it could look at the stars and consider what it already knew. 

It knew that the Malzekeen probably came from the city of Malzekeen, or at least they met their end there at the hands of an angry sun god. Where that was exactly didn’t truly matter in the grand scheme of things. 

What mattered was which of the many versions of history were right. To date, the most interesting books it had found were actually in the black libraries buried beneath Siddrimar. Those hidden histories contrasted more than a little with the public ones that its heads had read elsewhere, but because it had eaten their God, Tenebroum knew better than anyone how corrupt and untrustworthy Siddrim’s church had become in the last century. 

There had been several attempts to fix that and at least two reformations, but as the Lord of Light took less and less interest in the world he ruled over, corruption set in. Still, broadly speaking, Sdirrim’s adherents seemed to believe in a cyclical view of history. There were ages of light and ages of dark, and the world kept spinning. 

Different saints throughout the church's history took that to be literal, while others thought that it was a metaphor for corruption and vigilance. It was impossible to say which was true with any certainty. 

Given how much damage Tenebroum’s forces had done to the world so quickly, it understood how fragile that balance was, too. But it saw no way that light could win now that darkness was all but paramount. It was only the thought that the light had once believed the very same thing only a few years ago that gave it pause. 

I will take nothing for granted, Tenebroum told itself as it gazed across the night sky and glared at the waxing crescent moon with suspicion. I will find every advantage, take every precaution, and kill or corrupt every enemy until the whole world belongs to me and me alone! 

This was practically its mantra, and it had only strengthened as it learned how big the world was. For a short period of time it had assumed that it had already conquered almost all their was to see, but as it consulted maps and learned from the souls of merchants and mariners, it began to understood just how many other lands there were to be conquered. 

Though the darkness doubted they would stand any more of a chance against it than these pathetic kingdoms had, it would not grow overconfident. It promised itself that. Especially not as long as the moon still hung in the sky. That woman was not to be trusted, and even now, it was certain that she was marshaling her forces for some new trick. 

It had tricks of its own. It already possessed spirits of almost every element, and its work on its new nature goddess was going well. She still thought that she was free, but in time, his six-armed Queen of Thorns would do terrible things to the guerilla forces that had beset it on more than one occasion. The Lich had spent months carving those three spirits into one, and it wouldn’t be long before they had its brand on their soul, and it could finally be unleashed on an unsuspecting world. 

She was just the first of its new weapons, too. Once it struck down Abendend who knew what strange magics it would be able to unlock, and if the wolf was still buried beneath that ancient place as Groshin had promised it, well, Tenebroum was sure that soon it would be the one trapping the moon, not the other way around. It had already dragged the sun from the sky, so why not Lunaris as well?

Tenebroum watched her as she traced her slow track across the sky, just as she did every night as he considered all these complex ideas. Now, it just had to find the worm, and the table would be set.