Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 101-102 (Patreon)

Ch. 101 - A Shot in the Dark

In the instant that they passed through the stone, the Paragon was almost wrenched free of Jordan’s grasp as his hand and mind slackened. Trying to teleport through a solid object was the surest way to make sure they never found a body, though it was possible for a mage that was skilled or powerful enough. His instructor, Magus Gershwile, had joked more than once about that grim fate while he and his classmates had struggled to send rats from where they sat to the empty cage across the room that had waited for them.

It had taken a week before any of the rats that had managed to disappear without vanishing in a spray of blood to reappear on the far side of the room, alive and well, and there hadn’t been a wall in the way then. That had been years ago, of course, and Jordan had improved since then, but had he improved enough to fling them from the depths of darkness back into the light?

It was unlikely. Even as they soared through the emptiness between spaces, he could feel the hands of evil clawing at them and trying to drag them back to where they had departed.

Teleportation was an instantaneous thing. Done correctly, one would vanish in one spot and instantaneously appear in another, though it would always seem to the person in transit that seconds or minutes had passed. In fact, it was widely held that the longer it felt like it took, the closer one had come to the edge and that those who never reappeared simply stayed stuck in that timeless moment forever.

Jordan considered that entirely possible that that was the case here as he swallowed hard and tried to stay focused on their destination. Even being lost in the dark forever would be a kindlier fate than being raised as the servant of a monster, though, so he didn’t regret what he’d done for a single moment.

There was no denying that the faster he moved and the harder he strove, the further his destination moved from him. That thought was enough to bring him slowly to a halt as he drifted there, somewhere above the ground but far from the muddy field his magic had aimed for. He could feel the two of them beginning to freeze solid there, and that might have become an actual eternity were it not for the single silver thread that suddenly penetrated the endless dark.

The light of the moon would have been unable to breach the veil of unnatural darkness that shrouded this place had he stood in the real world. Here, though, past the boundaries of the world, the strange magic that caused that strange effect apparently didn’t apply, and the goddess of magic still reigned supreme.

That she had taken pity on him was not entirely a surprise; it happened sometimes in the stories. He only wondered if she’d done so to save the mage who was in danger or the servant of another god. Lunara was as merciful as she was mysterious, and her ways were never entirely understood, even by her devotees. Though most of the world saw her only as the guardian mother who lit up the night for the world, she was the patron god of mages, too. As he gripped the thread and pulled himself forward again, Jordan uttered a prayer of silent thanks for her intercession.

Suddenly, time started again, and seconds later, they found themselves in a heap of tangled limbs in a dark, snow-covered field. It was close to where he’d been aiming, probably, but that didn’t tell Jordan a lot. Even with Brother Faerbar’s glowing blade radiating outward, he couldn’t see the road.

While Jordan continued to search for some sign of where they should flee, the paladin lifted him up by the scruff of his collar and shook the mage like a rag doll.

“You … traitorous viper!” he said coldly, even though his eyes burned with fire, “You left all of those men to die!”

“Th-they… already… dead…” Jordan gasped, barely able to speak. “Must…flee…”

“We were slaughtering the devils by the score!” the Paragon said, raising his sword threateningly. “There’s still time to regroup. Still time! Take us back at once, or I’ll have no further use for you.”

Jordan could see that the man was half mad with rage and grief, but what he asked was impossible. Even if he had the strength left to try and the desire to end up back in that pit, they would certainly end up embedded in one of the stone walls for all eternity; the spaces were simply too claustrophobic.

So, he just hung there in the warrior’s grip, waiting for the man to run him through or strike his head from his shoulders. The blow never landed. Instead, the older warrior froze, ears pricked to some distant sound. Then, without explanation, he dropped Jordan and started walking forward.

Jordan had no idea what had just happened, and he wasn’t about to ask what miracle had given him reprieve. Instead, he listened to the dark, trying to hear what it was that the paladin seemed to be listening to. It took a minute of walking before he heard the child’s wail over the crunch of ice under their boots. By the Paragon was running.

Abruptly, they found the edge of darkness, and it fell away to reveal the thin gray light of dawn. Brother Faerbar stopped there, paralyzed by what he saw, even as Jordan rushed forward toward the sound.

The wan light was not yet enough to reveal any real details, but the shape of the shadows was more than Jordan ever wanted to see anyway, and the steam that was still rising from some of the corpses revealed that all of this had happened within the last few hours. He rushed to gather up the squalling child of five or six, hoping that the sound would lead him to further survivors. There was none, though. Not even the woman who still held the blood-stained bundle in her arms was breathing.

Jordan offered a second prayer to Lunara, sure that this was why she’d saved him. No one truly understood what it was she wanted, perhaps not even worshipers, but there were more than enough stories about how she would move heaven and earth to save motherless children and war orphans. This probably wasn’t even the strangest story on record, he realized, numbly, though he had no idea if they’d survive long enough to tell anyone.

Even with a knight glowing with divine might, the monsters that would come for the three of them come nightfall would be all but unbeatable now. Jordan looked past the field of dead bodies and up the road, trying to decide how far they could get before the last sunset, and he didn’t like his odds. It was only when he turned back to the Templar to ask him his opinion that Jordan finally saw a welcome sight: the sail of a ship.

. . .

Markez had been so busy pretending that everything was normal and that there wasn’t some monster lurking beneath them while they slowly poled their way through the darkness that he entirely missed the light on the far shore at first.

It was only when the children cried out that dawn had come again that they thanked the gods of the waters and cried out. “Well then, don’t stand around gawking at the sun. We got ourselves a sail to raise.”

Polling through the utter blackness that still stood adjusted behind them like a river had been as miserable as it had been unavoidable. With no starlight to show them where the sandbars or the shore were, they’d had to take that whole section nice and slow so as not to sink their fragile wooden world.

Now, as well as he had these children trained, it might take less than an hour to get their sale up and put that evil place behind them as quickly as possible. Markez was shocked they’d made it through at all, though that wasn’t something he was likely to tell anyone until he could find a pub where he could share drinks with a few salts his own age if such a thing even still existed in this fallen world.

No sooner did they have the sails up, though, and were once again starting to make real headway than another oddity was sighted. Two men were running towards them, and each of them was stranger than the last. The first one was wearing plate mail and glowing brighter than the sun itself, and the second was a skinny young man wearing bloody robes. He would have been inclined to put both of them in his wake, given how desperate and dangerous they looked. He doubted that everyone on this boat together could have possibly beaten him, even without whatever crazy magic he seemed to wield.

But for the baby, he would have left them both, but if Markez had a weakness, it was that. How could he ever hope to leave a defenseless infant behind?

So, he guided the boat toward the far shore and ordered his crew to start spilling wind from the sail so he could have a closer look at these two and decide what it was he should do about them. Fortunately, spilling wind from a sail was the only order that the sailors of this ship were any good at.

“You’re a strange couple of parents,” Markez called to the two men on shore as they pulled up close. “I’m not sure I can let such dangerous strangers come aboard my vessel, though!”

“I understand that you are nervous, sir,” the young man with robes said very politely, “I would do no less in these… trying times. But we can be of help to you in your darkest hour, as it were.”

Markez didn’t laugh at the joke. Instead, he set his chin and turned to Mr. Light, “And who’s this then? What’s with the light show? I haven’t seen a single Siddrimite since your god was plucked from the sky!”

Markez watched the man tense, and for a moment, he thought that the knight would draw his sword, but the man resisted, showing him how close to the mark he’d gotten.

“We are in a great war for the soul of the world,” the knight said with evident exhaustion, “and it shames me to say we are losing.”

“So then, why do you want on my boat?” Markez asked, confused.

“I don’t,” the man declared, shocking his companion. “Take these two and get as far from this evil place as you can, I will—”

“You can’t be serious!” the younger man yelled at the older one. They clearly hadn’t thought this through at all. “They will end you.”

“It’s where I belong,” The Templar said simply. “Only I can slay this foul beast. That is what this power is for to end—”

That was when the thing rose from the dark, boiling waters just ahead of the ship. The children screamed and fled aft, but Markez could only look at the thing in awe. It was the most horrific thing that he was ever likely to see, from the tips of the broken swords that made up its rusted maw to the corpse of the woman that was chained inside of the rib cage where its heart should have been if it was alive.

Just seeing that was enough to shave years of his life, and all he could do was stand there petrified while the two strangers sprung into action.

Ch. 102 - Leviathan

“Find them! Kill Them! Let them not escape!”

The distant words thundered inside her skull like a monsoon that had made landfall. So many times, his orders were insistent but resistable, for it was hard to force water into any shape that it did not choose. For example, the day before when, the voice had demanded that she crush that boat. He’d meant the one with the children, of course, but she had resisted, for she hated the slaughter of children and vented his bloodlust of the boat that had followed it instead.

Given time, the Lich would have ordered her to destroy the second skiff too and drown all those innocent lives, but it had more important matters to focus on and had left her to gather the mangled bodies of the drowned and bring them back to its lair.

Today, there was nothing to distract it from seeing its will done, and those commands built up with a tidal force that could not be denied. They were a lightning bolt into Oroza’s heart. They made her shackles burn with power that made it impossible to resist her own destructive impulse. At least for the moment, though, she could face off against warriors that probably deserved it.

The knight glowed with a light that no longer existed in the world that made her think of cool spring days after the snow melt had started in earnest, but the reminiscence wasn’t enough to give her the strength to resist the Lich. She would save that strength for the moment it forced her to indiscriminately murder the children who were huddled in fear nearby.

The knight led with a series of strikes as the white fire coruscating across his gilded armor burned even brighter. These weren’t strong enough to do real damage. He was simply testing her mettle and buying time for his friend.

At first, she thought the other man sought to escape. She hoped he did. Running him down would buy the children valuable time to flee. Some might yet escape with their lives.

He didn’t do that, though. He did something far stranger. He cast a spell, which was something she’d only seen a few times since she’d been chained to this corpse. Instantly, blue lightning struck her hard. It cooked the flesh where it went up her arm and then down into one of her left legs. It did very little damage, though, and she roared in annoyance more than pain.

She charged him then, planning to deal with the mage before he could think of some more effective tactic. He responded with fire.

The body of the swamp dragon was impossibly strong, and though the fire was enough to make her shy away for a moment due to her aversion, it could do nothing to the tanned skin or thick scales of her artificial, necrotic prison.

As the flames cleared, though, it was clear that they’d provided just enough distraction for the paladin to charge through him. The main was clearly insane, but his burns healed even as he moved, and when his glowing sword struck, it glanced off one of her ribs and pierced the heart of the body that contained her in her chest.

It was a violent, terrible pain that represented more damage than anyone had done to the monstrosity since Oroza herself had savaged it. It wasn’t enough, though, and she batted him harmlessly away into the grass.

Her blow didn’t keep him down any more than his blow had kept her down, though. Neither did her tail. He dodged it entirely, though she did succeed in sending the mage sprawling. She doubted that one would rise again, which was just as well because she hated fire.

He was back like a flash, charging her again. This time, despite the man’s armor and his wounds, he danced around her next clawed swipe, though that was just a feint. He weaved around it, obviously intending to strike her again. He would probably even succeed in that before she managed to bite him in half. The main even used some of his holy magic to blind her, making her skin sizzle and smolder for a moment, but it was a foolish decision.

After all, he’d already jumped before his light had overwhelmed her dead eyes, and he couldn’t change his trajectory in midair, so she still snapped at him, catching him in her maw and shaking him like a rag doll as her giant metal teeth ground against his armor. Several actually punctured it and sank satisfyingly into the flesh beneath, letting her feast on his blood.

It was only while she tasted that warm, coppery draught that she finally felt the wound he’d made as she’d bitten him. With a powerful swipe, he’d severed her right foot just below the calf, and for the first time in a long time, she was no longer fully attached to her bindings. She spat the man free, leaving him a crumpled, bleeding wreck on the ground, as she suddenly explored her current state of being.

“The spell…” she murmured, “It’s incomplete.” And it was true. Each manacle had borne identical runes, plated it gold when they’d been created once upon a time, but now so many had failed that there had only been a full set present if you combined all four manacles together, and one had just been opened in the most grisly way possible.

“Three circles is enough to hold a lesser goddess like you,” the darkness spat. “Finish them, and I will have you repairs when this is done.”

“No,” she said, trying the word on for size and finding that she liked it.

“No?!” The Lich roared. “Do as you are told, Oroza!”

She didn’t, though. The corpse couldn’t hold her now, and neither could the words that passed through it. Not with only three worn and pitted manacles. All these decades since the darkness had captured her and turned her into a mockery of her true self, she’d waited for the time and the tides to do their work.

What chance did the Lich’s efforts have against the forces that ground rocky promontories and breakwaters into nothing but fine beach sand? It was folly to assume that it could cage nature, no matter how much it poisoned her wellspring.

She smiled then, for the first time since her capture, and strained at her manacles, ripping first the left out of the socket where the chain held it and then the right. The swamp dragon roared in pain as it reared up, unable to strike the final blow as she ripped the still-beating heart out of it.

The mage was being dragged back toward the craft by some of the children and an old man, but the knight still lay there, just begging to be finished off. It couldn’t strike the final blow, though, because she wouldn’t let it. Any other opponent would already be dead, of course, but she watched the light pouring out of the bite marks decrease with every second as the flesh knitted shut again, but she didn’t care.

Even though she hated Siddrim’s sheep and would have gladly killed him for the slights they had heaped upon her followers, she knew how much more the Lich that had held her leash for so long hated and feared them. So, he would live, but only because of spite.

The swamp dragon roared to the skies, spasming as she leaned forward and ripped open the bars of the prison that had held her for so long, and then, with one last yank at the sole remaining manacle around her right leg, she was free.

The bars of the ribcage were coated in ugly, rusted iron, but at their core, they were still bone, and when she crushed them, they fell apart like rotten wood in her rubbery finger. As Oroza jumped to the ground, free of her cage for the first time in an eternity, she was sorely tempted to immediately drop the corpse she’d been bound to and flee into the water. She didn’t, though. Not yet. She still had things to do.

Standing there on one foot and one stump, she turned her attention to the straining corpse of the swamp dragon that loomed above her.

“You cannot escape me!” The Lich screamed in her mind, but she ignored it. Without the chains he’d held her with for so long, his orders and compulsions passed through her, leaving only a ripple in their wake.

“I am no longer yours to command,” she whispered as she engaged with it in a battle of wills over what the swamp dragon would do next.

Now that she was no longer attached to it, she’d lost some of her advantages over the darkness that was trying to make the hodgepodge of reptile bones strike her down, along with all the other living creatures currently sheltered in her wake.

They stood like that long enough for the knight to stagger to his feet and make his way toward the fragile boat that everyone else was already aboard. She ignored that, though. Instead, she forced the dragon to reach up and crush its own skull between its two monster paws while the Lich raged in her soul at what she was doing.

That didn’t stop her from forcing it to grab the structural clavicle that held her cage in place so long and rip it off of the rest of its body before it collapsed into pieces on the ground next to her.

“I shall rebuild my dragon and devour you once more, goddess!” the Lich bellowed, but she could hear its fear now.

“If you are foolish enough to enter my waters again, you shall be the one to pay the price,” she whispered. Already walking to the water.

The Lich started to respond, but she didn’t hear it. By the time it had started to scream again, her toes had touched the water of the river, of her river, and she immediately left the corpse, which collapsed into the shallows like a puppet with the strings cut.

It was an exhilarating feeling. She knew she would never truly feel clean again thanks to all of the horrific things that the Lich had done to her, to say nothing of the things it had forced her to do. She still allowed herself a moment to just experience the feeling of being one with the river once more. Her consciousness rippled along the length of her domain, from the still-tainted headwaters to the brackish delta she’d spent so much time in the last few years. Everything was where she had left it, more or less, and she could now begin again in the endless cycle of nature.

First, though, she had to finish dealing with the Lich. With a thought, the current rippled, snatching the corpse that had been her for far too long and dragging it down into the depths for the fish and the eels to devour. She had no idea what the darkness might be able to do with something so powerfully associated with her, but she would rather die than find out the hard way.

Once that was done, she blended in with the currents, finally unfurling the ghostly, sinuous nature that was a river dragon and using it to drag the boat back out into the channel and upstream against the current before the Lich could launch some new monster to slaughter all the children onboard the fragile vessel.