Tenebroum 15-16 (Patreon)

Enjoy the next two chapters of Tenebroum! Next post of 11/14.

Ch. 15 - Solovino’s Last Song

For almost a month, Louven Solovino had finally known peace again. The dreams had stopped almost completely, and for the first time in recent memory, he’d sung all the verses of a particularly bawdy song to a crowd of drunks in the common room of the tavern he was staying in last night. He’d told them all exactly how the maid had gotten waylaid, and even during the encore verses he’d felt no need to switch gears and tell everyone about that awful swamp or their dreadful riches.

He’d only done it to bring the barmaid back to his room of course. It it worked as it always did, but the difference was that for the first time in half a year he’d actually enjoyed spending the night with the buxom lass. Now, even though she’d left before sunrise to avoid a walk of shame, and her side of the bed had long since grown cold, he finally felt like a weight had been lifted from off his heart. Not so much that he dared to try taking off that damnable medallion of course. He’d learned that lesson too many times already. Just this measure of peace was enough.

He slowly rose and stretched, absently scratching his neck and shoulder. Maybe today he’d go as far as Cambria or Anwoken. He hadn’t been to either village in an age, and they’d been decent to him in the past. As he started looking for his trousers, he was sure that today was going to be a good day. He kicked off the blankets, and brushed aside his boots, finally noticing what a number he and that barmaid had done on his room. His backpack had gotten knocked over and his stuff was scattered across the floor in that part of the room and half of his pillows were on the floor. Louven supposed he should be grateful that the whole damn bed hadn’t given out after the night they’d had.

“Tiarna? He asked himself quietly. Temara?” He couldn’t remember her name. He supposed it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was getting dressed and getting downstairs before they ran out of eggs or sausage.

Finally, he found his pants peeking out from underneath her side of the bed. Tired of standing around in just his breaches, and more than a little hungry, Solovino bent down to grab his pants, but clumsy as was he succeeded in only pushing them further under the bed. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He didn’t think he’d been that drunk last night, and was only the faintest bit bleary now. Still, as he got down on his hands and knees to fish out his clothes from the darkness he was grateful that at least this time he wasn’t in a hurry to get out before an angry husband found him.

The darkness under the bed was almost absolute. None of the faint light from the window reached here, so except for the brown cloth he was reaching for, it might have easily been an abyss. Memories of true darkness flickered in his mind, but he pushed those memories away as quickly as they surfaced. He’d been in the pitch black darkness of that maze for days, and tried very hard to stay in well lit establishments ever since. The bard clutched his pants and yanked them out from the bed. The unpleasant memories were doing an excellent job of souring his wonderful morning and it would take at least two or three beers to fix once he got downstairs he decided, frowning.

Halfway out though, the clothes got stuck and wouldn’t come any further. “Of course,” Solovino sighed. As he crawled a little bit further into the darkness so he could grope with his hands and find out what they were stuck on, he idly wondered if there was a song in this mishap. Surely other men in the audience had faced a similar dilemma of trying to get dressed and get away after a rough night.

“But I’ll need something that rhymes with trousers of course. Ours? Flowers?” he shrugged mentally. He could work on it later after his brilliant creative mind had been properly lubricated. He could—

Solovino barely had time to scream when he felt the first pair of hands grab him, and he instantly let go of his clothes and tried to pull away from them. Maybe Tenessa really did have an angry husband, he thought in a panic, before he felt a second and a third pair of hands grab hold of his arm and pull him into the darkness with irresistible strength.

Then suddenly he was back in that room, with that awful golden cadaver. Aside from a foot of water on the floor, and dark mold that had blossomed across the walls, nothing had changed. The bard could feel the amulet he wore on his bare chest throbbing like a second heartbeat.

“You’ve been lazy, Bard.” the Skeleton said with slow, precise words, in a hollow voice. Last time he’d seen the Lich it had sat there, frozen on its throne like a particularly distasteful sculpture. This time though it leaned forward and spoke. “You’ve been lazy and that will cost you, but not just yet. Right now I need something from you.”

“Anything!” Solovino gasped, his voice cracking from fear as he shied away from this thing’s presence. “Just don’t hurt me!” The bard had long ago given up on being brave. He’d thought that he’d run out of those urges. But right now he felt an anger in him that he knew would have withered to nothing under the cold gaze of this monster if he’d really been back in the swamp. This was a dream, and in a dream there were no zombies that could rip him to pieces.

“I need a new song.” The lich continued. “You must sing to all who will listen that I am dead, and the rains of the archmage have washed away the darkness and—” Solovino’s heart was pounding in his ears so loudly that he could barely listen to what the gilded skeleton in front of him was saying. Suddenly his hands shot out and wrapped around the thing's throat and started to squeeze as he throttled the thing. There was nothing to choke, but he shook it violently, trying to break the brittle old bones.

“Dead? Why settle for a song about being dead,” the bard growled, “I can just give you the real thing.” One final shake and he felt as much as heard something crack, as the thing’s skull went tumbling across the floor. The skull rolled half a dozen feat away before coming slowly to a stop, face up, half a dozen feat away from him.

“Compose my song, or your misery will never end,” it cackled. Even as it laughed though, the room began to darken, until seconds later only the skull was still visible. “Sing about my death or yours will be quick to follow.”

Solovino woke with a start, gasping for air as he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He looked won in the predawn light find that even though his hands had been wrapped around the lich’s throat in the dream they’d been wrapped around Temira’s in the waking world.

“No,” he whispered, looking at her blue lifeless skin in the morning twilight. “Nononono - fuck!” Even in death she was beautiful. Only a monster would have hurt such a pretty young woman, and with a sick feeling in his stomach, he realized the only monster in the room was him.

The bard got out of bed and started to panic, dressing and packing as quickly as he’d ever done. There was nothing he could do, and nowhere he could hide the body. Part of him wanted to turn himself in, but the rest of him still wanted to live. It was that part that won the fight and hurriedly left the inn after he’d covered the tavern maid with a sheet out of respect to her dignity.

He didn’t have a horse, and he knew that law would be looking for him before the end of the day, so he decided to take the backway to Anwoken. He wouldn’t sing there either. He’d just stay the night until he could get further on. Far enough from here this story might become a rumor that he could downplay as gossip. From there he could tell whatever lord sheltered him when the news finally ran faster than his feet that it was a case of mistaken identity, but right here? Right now? There was no way to reason with a noose or a tree, and he doubted very much that the darkness that gripped his heart would let him tell even a tenth of the truth. Even if he wanted to.

For three days he stayed ahead of the events that nipped at his heels. After the first night he no longer stayed in inns. He knew it wasn’t safe. Instead he slept fitfully in ditches and woods, camping rough, and getting off the road whenever he heard the distant sound of galloping. Eventually he even started to compose the new song the voice in his head commanded of him, if only so he could sleep again. Solovino’s luck didn’t hold out though. On the fourth night his campfire was spotted by armed men, who, after a brief chase through the woods, bound him hand and foot before they heaved him over the back of a mule to be brought back to Illingsbruck for justice.

It was a miserable ride, and the darkness in his soul took no pity on him just because he was physically unable to follow the liches orders. For the first couple nights they tried to ask him why he did it. They wanted to know why he killed Temira badly enough to beat it out of him, but for once the bard didn’t have anything to say that anyone wanted to hear. All he could offer was apologies and gut wrenching sobs.

As luck would have it though, he didn’t get the noose that had been reserved for him. When they arrived in Illingsbruck there was a small band of templars waiting there to put him to the question about some of the heresies he'd been spreading.

Solovino would have preferred the noose.

He didn’t have a choice though, and as they tied him to a chair, he tried to explain that to them. “Please - I-I’m just a singer,” he pleaded, “I don’t know anything!”

“A singer huh? You’re a man of high fame and low morals Louven Solovino. Everyone knows that about you, and now they know you’re a murderer too,” the inquisitor said, as he went through the bard’s pack, “I hadn’t planned to make you sing loud enough for the whole village to hear until later, but if you want to sing now, then why don’t you start with a hymn to put us all at ease.”

Solovino opened his mouth to try to sing the opening notes to ‘Our Lady of Peace,’ but nothing came out of his mouth.

“Yeah, I thought not,” the holy man nodded. He had a touch of gray at his temples and sad eyes that didn’t fit at all with the air of danger about him. “Maybe this will help you to find your voice. I find the gods always inspire me in my times of darkness.”

Solovino was bound to the chain by his wrists, so he was in a position to pull away when the inquisitor shoved a small silver icon into the bard’s hand before closing both of his hands around it.

“Normally this is the when I would pray with you, while the pain of your foul, tainted spirit burns, so we can better understand what we are dealing with before—”

“Ahhhhh, just let - I need to…” Solovino babbled. The object that the inquisitor had shoved in his hand had felt wrong from the first moment he’d been forced to touch it, and after a few seconds it started to burn, but now it was pure agony.

“Gag him,” the inquisitor ordered, and almost instantly one of the templars came forward to obey. The dirty rag muted the screaming, but it did nothing for the pain. It was only when thin traces of foul smelling smoke began to pour out from between Solovino’s fingers. The inquisitor only let him stop the holy icon on the ground where it landed in some dry hay without so much as smoldering. The inquisitor then opened up the Bard’s limp hand and showed him the raw and mangled burn that the holy symbol had inflicted on his palm. And fingers.

“Well it doesn’t look like you’ll be playing that Mandolin of yours any time soon,” the inquisitor shook his head slowly as he spoke, “But just between you and me, I don’t think you’ve got much singing left in your future. I think that you might just have one story left inside that corrupted soul of yours and I’m going to pry it out of you no matter how many pieces we have to cut you into.”

The inquisitor let the pain of the last minute mix with the terror of the present before he continued. “You see, our hallowed pontiff received a letter from the Magica Collegium in Abenend, warning us of a horrible danger from some backwater and encouraging us to mobilize an expedition to root it out. Can you believe it? Those dogs haven't dared to speak to us in decades, and then they send us a letter that mentions a corrupted little man like you by name?”

Solovino couldn’t speak, so he just shook his head from side to side. He wanted nothing to do with these people or their religion, and if they would only let him talk he’d gladly tell them anything they wanted to hear, but they obviously had no interest in that yet.

“So our pontiff, blessed be his name, has sent us out on a little fact finding trip that starts with you. We’ve spent more than a month looking for you in all the lowest places we could find. We might never would have found you if you didn’t decide to go and kill that girl.” The inquisitor’s lips curled into a cruel smile when the bard began to shake his head even more violently. “So you can tell me everything I want to know about this cursed arch magus and his blasted swamp or I can take you apart a piece at a time until you do, it’s entirely up to you.”

Ch. 16 - The Goblins

Despite the pain that was caused by the searing white light of the inquisitor’s god, the darkness stayed with Solovino until the end. It wasn’t just because the bard's suffering was delicious either, though it was. It was because with every word the fool that tortured his minion to death gave it valuable information. Templars existed to hunt down evil. There was a Holy city. The church thought very little of mages, and by proxy, since a mage thought that the darkness was a grave threat, they were utterly unconcerned by it. It was almost laughable to the darkness. They were more interested in hurting the bard for his terribly licentious reputation than on understanding the darkness with him. It didn’t help matters that the Bard was literally incapable of telling them what they wanted to know though.

With every word, the swamp’s decision to keep a low profile and disappear from sight in the wake of the storm seemed like a better and better idea. It had barely begun to explore the new opportunities that awaited in its expanded territory, and the last thing it needed right now was to deal with fending off a serious threat in its weakened state. So it watched while the Bard tried in vain to tell the holy men what they wanted to know while he lost his fingers one at a time. The swamp would have preferred to keep Solovino. His songs had been useful for whetting its appetite for the wider world, but its grip on him weakened during the flood, and the wraith would much rather that the bard was put down like a dog he was rather than give him the chance to somehow slip the leash.

In the end Solovino didn’t even die with a whimper. When he was finally on the verge of telling the men about the lich beneath the swamp, that same lich simply pulled his soul out of his body, completing their dark bargain and pulling the bard back to him like a fish on a hook. After a brief spasm, Solovino’s body grew still, and with an acrid odor and a puff of foul smoke, the amulet on the tortured mans chest began to melt until it was nothing but slag. Moments later the darkness lost sight of the Templars, but he doubted they would find any clues on the body that would come back to haunt it.

Free from that distraction, the darkness turned its attention back to other matters. It would save the damned soul for a special occasion. It had other things to do now. Last week it noticed that the flooding had placed a string of caverns to the west firmly in its reach now. That was surprising enough. It had no other formations like this anywhere that it could reach. What was more interesting were the creatures that dwelled inside: goblins.

The swamp knew what goblins were of course. They were common enough. They were a vermin that had been purged from all civilized lands, but foothills and the mountains that lay beyond them were still wild places, and all manner of strange creatures still lived there. The darkness had seen larger predators like wyvern and chimera soar far above the edges of its territory, but it had no hold on them, and could only watch as they flew into the distance. Goblins were different though. They were more like true men, than even the lizard men that still worshiped it in small numbers here and there.

It wasn’t just possible to infect the goblins with its darkness. It was easy. The creatures had just enough of a mind to be filled with avarice and bloodlust, but not enough for anything resembling higher pursuits. In the weeks that followed the swamp spent almost all its time learning about the small tribe that it had the smallest of holds on. It learned how they fought, how they bred, and what they ate. They were vermin with fingers, but they were his vermin. They drank of its polluted flood waters, shat in its mud, and as soon as the darkness understood them, they would belong to it, forever.

More than anything else they did, they fought amongst each other and the neighboring tribes in the surrounding area for space and resources. One week they were fighting over this cave, and the next over that watering hole. The green skinned beasts lacked a proper language. Indeed, even their dreams were little more than flashes of pure rage or fantasies to sate one of their many hungers. In time the swamp identified them by their totems, and the crude graffiti they daubed on the walls of their lairs. The tribe that dwelt in the swamps domain was the black teeth tribe, named for the poisonous frogs that stained their teeth as much as the stalactites that dominated their dank lair. Surrounding them were their most fearsome enemies: the dog eaters and the burning skulls.

It was unable to get much insight into the other two tribes that surrounded the cave system, but the swamp was vaguely excited when it saw a member of the burning skulls wielding a sort of fire magic in battle against the Blackteeth. It didn’t matter what they fought over, as long as they had someone to fight, and day after day that trickle of blood and rage nourished the swamp in a way that neither the worship of the lizardmen nor the slaughter of adventurers had. These petty conflicts were the perfect flavor for what the darkness craved, and it was with that revelation that the swamp realized exactly what it could do to bring its latest pets into the fold: power.

Of the three it seemed to be the only one to possess even rudimentary magic. It was no surprise then that it was winning, and slowly pushing both of the other groups of goblins out of the most desirable territory. In time it might be the only tribe left standing. The swamp wondered how that would affect the regional balance of power as it gazed across the swamps and foothills, and then north towards the plains where the humans dwelled. Between the rugged outlands where the darkness held sway were fifty miles of plains dotted with human villages. As it viewed the big picture, the lich could see the bigger picture.

In a vision he saw them, ten thousand hungry mouths of a united goblin army. Instead of killing each other each day they rose up as one and devoured the kingdom of man, one small town at a time. It was a tide of blood that could sweep away everything in its path. Enough blood that the bottomless hunger that was the darkness might finally feel sated.

But they’d never be united. Not like this.

Even if the flaming skulls were to win and replace the black teeth and the dog eaters, they would still be prey to a fourth tribe, or they would grow so large that they would break into two, and fight themselves for lack of another opponent. It was their way after all. They are only a few steps above the animals of the swamp. The darkness might command a crocodile to devour a trapper that strayed too far into its domain, but it could never command an army of crocodiles to invade a city. The brutality and the hunger of the former was their nature, but the discipline of the latter was an impossibility.

The same might be true for the goblin’s, the swamp considered, but it seemed like there was enough of man in them to know fear and take orders, and for now that would be enough. All they needed was a leader strong enough to command that fear and bring the other tribes to heel, and if that goblin did not already exist, then the swamp would create one.

The darkness finally found its first candidate, dying in the depths of the cave. Its name was Grod, at least that’s what the darkness thought it’s name was, not that it really mattered. Goblin dreams could be very confusing. The goblin was a fine warrior, but had bitten off more than it could chew in a fight with a dog eater half a head taller than him. Grod had still managed to win, with a level of sheer brutality that had managed to impress the darkness. Even with a knife in his guts he’d managed to rip out the other goblin’s throat with his teeth and make it home.

He wasn’t the toughest or the best warrior in the tribe, but he was a fighter, and he was dying from the infection in his wound. Grod knew it too, just like he knew that his fellow black teeth were circling like vultures, waiting for him to become too weak to be a warrior anymore. Once that happened he wasn’t a goblin anymore. He was just food. As the dying goblin slipped in and out of his fever dreams, the swamp slipped in. Dreams and illness were its purview even more than life and death. Saving this wretched creature would be one of the most minor miracles it had accomplished in years. Impressing the power of the pact on it though, and forcing it to agree to serve it would be much more challenging than actually healing it.

In the end it took a night and a day, with the dream imagery getting increasingly concrete and convoluted. Rather than dreaming of battle, as Grod usually did, he dreamt of a dank temple. On the altar was a goblet of blood shaped like a golden skull. The first time the dream played through, he tentatively drank from it. He was surprised to find that his wounds had healed, but panicked when the chains rose up from the floor to shackle him. The second and third times the dream occurred, the choice was the same, but it was more accepting of the shackles.

The goblin understood. Its life could be restored, but it came at the cost of service. Whether or not it understood the depths of that service, or that it would last a lifetime, the darkness couldn’t say. It didn’t matter though. If the creature proved too troublesome then darkness would make sure it died a slow and painful death before it found another to serve in its place.

Two days later Grod was hale and healthy again, with only a terrible black scar to show where his brush with death had been. As goblin’s go he’d always been quarrelsome and bloodthirsty, but now he was worse than ever. He literally hungered for blood now, charging his opponents in every fight, and using only his bare hands and teeth rather than the crude weapons that goblins usually favored to rip them to pieces. Every death made him stronger, and no matter how badly the darkness’ pet goblin was wounded, the next day he was fine. Every week his standing rose in the black teeth tribe, until soon he had a spot close to the fire and tender meat instead of the scraps he’d always made do with until now.

The goblin did its part too, boiling the skulls of his slain foes in an old pot helmet. The goblins would never have the skill to work metal, but yellow clay mixed with goblin urine did a wonderful job of turning the skulls yellow. Once they were stained, the goblin began to mark its slowly expanding territory with the fearsome totems. The tide had turned, and for once the surrounding tribes were on the back foot at the Black Teeth began to win battle after battle and seize control of key parts of the surrounding area.