Chapter 79: -Cautious Decent


    The hallway that left the well they’d descended quickly split again and again, branching in all directions. There was no danger of getting lost just yet, though. This wasn’t just because of the river of darkness he followed as his heart pounded in Todd’s chest. It was also because all of the side passaged quickly developed an unfinished and irregr look to them. Only this main passage had been carefully fitted with red tiles and gold trim.


    Before they’d decided to go deeper, Todd had ordered some of the men bringing up the rear to grab red candles from the alter so that they could mark the path in case they needed to beat a hasty retreat. That seemed almost unnecessary, though, as their procession cautiously made its way down a passage that really did seem to belong to The Temple of the Dawn.


    Todd wanted to believe that was true. He wanted to turn the corner and find Brother Verdenian and all of the other visiting priests delivering some sacrament in a second chapel. To remind the people of the importance of pushing back the darkness or some such. Other men were whispering about such things behind him as they moved forward, but Todd couldn’t, though. He could see evil bleeding from the walls here, held back by a thin veneer of artistry. Sometimes the ck clouds were so thick he felt it might choke him, and when he considered just how much his powers had waned in thest year or two, he knew that meant something terrible awaited them.


    Ironically, if he’d possessed the power of sight he’d had as a boy, he’d likely be unable to even set foot down here, he thought darkly. Still, Siddrim’s gifts had not deserted him. They had merely transformed. He could wield the light better every year, and healing himself with it was also possible. That hadn’t been true even a year ago, but still, he worried that it wouldn’t be enough.


    They’d passed perhaps thirty side passages and walked for several hundred feet in an almost straight line before their gilded walkway came to an end in a chapel that mocked the one above. It was there they found the first bodies, and Todd’s heart sank.


    The Temple of the Dawn was a bright room dominated by the color white and ented with red, pink, orange, and gilded statues. Thisrge round room was simr in many ways but inverted. The white pirs were ck, the gold statues were tarnished bronze, and the sunset color scheme was reced with dark indigo and violets. It was aplete inversion, and though they hadn’t yet found the parishioners, it was decorated with the bodies of the missing priests.


    Above the altar, the Bishop had been crucified, and his red robes were stained almost to ck by arterial blood. Strangely, though, he’d died with a smile on his face. He wasn’t the only one that had been murdered here, though. All the other priests had been hung by their feet on each of the pirs and bled like cattle with their throats slit. Only Brother Verdenin was absent.


    “What in the name of sweet merciful light is this!” one guard wailed. Todd looked over to see if he’d cracked ad saw tears in the eyes of the guard captain as he looked up at his now-dead charge.


    Sadly, Todd realized the warrior was at least as upset by how bad this would make him look as he was by the man’s death, and he shook his head in disgust. He looked around the room at the men with him and the growing certainty that none of them except for perhaps him was ready to fight whatever it was they might find down here.


    “Alright, everyone,” Todd said, “I think this is officially more than we can handle on our own. We’ll cut the bodies down, bring them to the surface and then post sentries on the stairs until…”


    Todd’s words trailed off as bells somewhere above him began to ring in the dark, and the bodies that were apparently strung up to the ppers of them began to sway like morbid wind chimes. He couldn’t feel a breeze, but he could feel somethinging. Something dark.


    “Brace yourself, men! Its—” his words were lost as a torrent of darkness filled the room, extinguishing every source of light except for the dimmest glow of his sword. That was barely enough to see his hands, though. It was the barest ribbon of light, but Todd held firm and resolved to use it like apass needle to find his way back.


    “Steady, everyone. It’s some kind of illusion,” Todd cried out, trying to overpower both the flow noise of whatever this was as well as the panics, screams, and shouts of his own people. “If we just stick together, we can make our way back out, and we’lle back for help.”


    That seemed to calm a few of the men down, and as he walked back the way they came, he heard a few people yelling for others to join them, and the tter of mail and booted feet quickly followed him.


    Todd was petrified. He hadn’t even seen a single zombie, and he was already more frightened than he’d been while his temr brothers were fighting the tentacled beast in Oroza’s undertemple. How could he have missed this, he wondered? How could anyone?


    The image from his sickness about the open wound in the earth overflowing with evil came back to him then. Had Siddrim been trying to tell him something? Had his own mind? Surely if the god of light had known that something this dark lurked beneath the surface, he would have warned the church.


    That meant he didn’t know, Todd realized. Perhaps the depth that it was buried, and the pollution of the nearby river had been enough to hide it even from the eyes of the divine. Todd was no theologian and could not speak on such things, but it seemed to be the only answer. They’d stumbled onto something terrible, though, and they had to warn someone, even if that someone was only the Lord of Light himself.


    That meant that Brother Verdenin had to be part of this, though, didn’t it? He’d built the temple. He’d chosen every specification. He’d hidden the altar area for months beneath his tent for months while this strange underground mechanism was installed. He’d done everything, and the person that was supposed to be watching him the whole time had missed it somehow.


    Todd sighed in frustration as the pieces only fell together toote, but after a moment of self-pity, he forced himself to refocus. He’d led these men in here thinking he could be the hero, and he had to lead them out of here.


    “We’ve got to be getting close,” one of the men called out, “Right?”


    “We need to get out of here before whatever is down here finds us!” another called out.


    “I feel like there’s something in here with us,” a third warrior called out with a voice that sounded like his spirit was about to break.


    “Strength, brothers!” Todd called out, trying to rally them. “We’re almost out of this pit. I see a light up ahead, and if we…” his voice trailed off as he realized the color of the light was wrong. Was something waiting there for them, or had he led them astray.


    The gloom slowly faded, receding like a tide, and Todd entered a room sorge he couldn’t see the walls with the dim lighting from the blue fire of the brazier that sat there balefully. Todd had been sure that he was following the same richly decorated passage they’de in through. He’d been able to glimpse the glimmer of its gilding from his sword, but as he looked to his side, he saw that illusion was fading, revealing nothing but the rough-hewn walls of a tunnel that looked shockingly simr to those he’d once delved into beneath Fallravea.


    “Something strange is here. I think we need to turn around and…” Todd spoke as he turned all the way around the face of his men.


    They weren’t there when he turned around. Rather, there were only pieces of them. Something dark and sinuous, made of tentacles of shadows, was holding the heads and feet of several men.


    “Oh no, Brother Graff - we’ve been sliced to pieces; whatever shall we do?” the headless guard captain asked in a voice that was a perfect mimicry of the man’s voice that he’d spoken with when he’d been alive.


    “You killed us all, sir!” another head shouted in mockery, “Whatever shall be of you now?!”


    Todd gritted his teeth and ignored their words as heshed out with his glowing sword in a fierce lunge. The thing that was holding the objects didn’t drop a single one as it deftly wove to the side of Todd’s sizzling de. He followed up with a powerful sh, hoping to catch at least a few stray tentacles, but the monstrosity danced out of reach with ease.


    “Let’s not fight among ourselves,” the guardmander’s head begged. “I am, but a simple messengeres to deliver you the good news.”


    “You are an unclean spirit, and I shall purge you by fire and light!” Todd roared, taking two steps forward as he tried hard to bring this monstrosity down. How many men had left that awful chapel alive with him? How many had died while he led them in the wrong direction? Todd did his best to ignore these questions, but they ate at him with every swing and every miss.


    “You’ve been chosen to see what no living eyes have ever glimpsed before, Todd Graff,” the abomination said from all three mouths at once, creating a horrible chorus. “Behold - the true power of what is about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting world of light.”


    “I need to see no more than you to know…” The words died in Todd’s throat as suddenly the lit brazier near him and several further back red violently to life.


    Blue mes taller than him lept ten feet in the air, and Todd could feel the chill radiating off of them from here. That alone would have been enough to give him pause, but the things that they revealed made him stare ckjawed and the abominable sights.


    The room was massive. It wasrger than thergest warehouse in ckwater, and it was filled with rank after rank of the living dead. There were hundreds of the monstrosities, or perhaps thousands standing there at perfect attention like they were in hibernation. They weren’t, though.


    Todd could see the evil magic that animated them and knew that with a single word from their master, they would all swarm him. Even with Siddrim’s light, he wouldst only seconds. These were not the simple reanimated corpses he’d fought previously. These were made for war, and no two were made identically.


    Some had extra arms, or extra legs, most had weaponsshed to their hands so they could never be disarmed, and all of them had heavy armor riveted to their body. Each one of these would be hard to kill, and as soon as they did, they’d be reced by another.


    It was a terrifying sight.


    “What in the name of the light,” Todd gasped. As he spoke, every head in the room swiveled to face him in a single motion.


    “And that starts the timer,” the mocking monstrosity told him on all three voices as it produced an hourss full of gold dust from somewhere. “You now have one hour left to live. After that, my master will scourge your soul from your flesh. Do try to enjoy it.”


    Todd swallowed hard, not sure of what to make of such a strange threat. If he was going to die, why not just strike him down on the spot like it had all of the other men that hade down here?


    Todd didn’t have the answer, but that didn’t stop him froming back the way he’de, ignoring his tormentor as he desperately searched for the way out.