(USFB): Twenty: Deeper Cellars of Yesterday

A dank and mold-fettered draft wisped into the depths of the cavernous temple until it reached the desolate form of the puma. His mind danced in the void between one world and the next, trying furtively to again find purpose and strength. He clutched his digits tight to his paw pads, feeling the crusted, dried blood peel away in chunks before allowing deep tracks in his flesh to weep again. It felt, in so many ways, that he had been bled dry a score of times over, and still, he was far from the inner sanctum he sought. The task was one that would better fit an army of men, able to open their veins and give life to the waiting ancient still so many floors lower.

As Kovarlin stirred, the air did as well until the vague outline of a cyclone whipped about the wastes of times past. Through this twisting current, a more refined shape became apparent, but if the puma could put a finger on it, he was unable to do so now. But it was not the image as the sound that came from the cycling winds. A whisper in the breeze spoke onto him, not from the dust devil itself but from the antiquated charms and safeguards set into the great sarcophagus of the Goredrinker. Bells and chimes, whistles and streamers of iron and gold clanged against every surface until the cacophony spoke.

In a wisping way came, “Turn back. Turn back now before you cross that line that none may retreat from. There is still time to mend, to sew shut these rifts you have opened.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“The blood,” the breeze whispered, “The blood and its master betray you. There is nothing that can be granted from this icon of flesh. You shall only meet misery.”

“I have misery tucked well in my pocket. Nothing can be done by the paw of Pai’gen that is not equal to it already,” Kovarlin began to sober against his deprivations, “And who are you to tell me of anything of the sort? You could be nothing more than one of the Spiritcatcher’s children.”

The twister again rallied and this time, drew forth some of the various noisemakers and debris that littered the corridor. As they fell into line in the cycling winds, a face that may have looked in shape like Kovarlin became obvious. The figure, however, was hardly his height and built of better-reinforced muscle than the puma had even in his days on the Endless. Though the shape moved, it could not illustrate itself in delicate minute gestures. Still, a baneful expression radiated from the inconstant features.

Finally, the specter of wind howled, “You’ve turned away from our matriarch, Huntsmen. When next we meet, if that blood-drenched demon so sees fit to leave you alive, it will be as an enemy. You, a foe against all life, and myself the bane to your incivility, your lust for destruction.”

With a final condemnation, the winds whipped their final chorus and scattered every piece it had lent from the tomb to the furthest reaches of the space. The immense whipcord of excitement sent the puma again sprawling to his back. He stared at the still-ringing bell overhead and wondered if he hadn’t imagined the entire scene. Though he hated to admit it, in the past score of cycles, and ever more so since crossing the strait into the Lifeless Grounds, he had been losing himself. There were actions he couldn’t recall committing, wounds that had cropped up without his knowledge, and whole days that had evaporated like a puddle in Summer’s heat. Yet, as he righted himself, finding every candle lit by his own paws now sent to shade, he had to admit it was either truth or another span of time lost to a mind fatigued by life itself.

In the depth of the earth where even the most desperate of vermin and worm dare not tread, especially in lands glut so on blood that even the plantlife required it more than sun and water, Kovarlin sat silent. His mind worked, trying to fight through the haze of dormancy that kept clinging inside his skull. It was not impossible, he conceded, that some other had sought and found him. When he had known the Smith or even amid his interlude with Darkstalker, he had been found by the Sunchild. It was impossible to say how many more rambled about the countryside attuned with things beyond the normal sphere of influence. The fox had come along with such valor and determination, and the lynx to boot, that it was small wonder that he hadn’t been accosted more than he had in his trek south. There had been the militants, but they were nothing in actuality but surly and violent folk.

Kovarlin rose and began to feel across the walls for any one of the braziers or wall sconces that might aid him in continuing. It wasn’t as though his night vision was so poor. In fact, to a degree, he could see near enough to everything around him, but the firelight would make his task all the more simple. To have to drain himself into the right receptacle, to allow his blood to trail down the proper channel and work the internals of the next lock, was not something he cared to do in a trial-and-error fashion. He had learned enough through the challenges his master had set before him that to rush and neglect propriety was the surest way to ruin one’s self. Near enough, he had found himself beached across the consequences for such actions that he might have confused himself with one of the blotted prong-rays that washed up on the island shores in the fall. Yet those massive heaps of blubber had at least completed their life’s ambition before their landing on the volcanic beaches in the north. Their eggs had been fertilized or had fertilized another’s eggs, and the ensuing generation ensured. Kovarlin had yet to assure his own success.

With the edge of his dagger, he scored the walls again and again until finally a showering of sparks met the tinder of a previously unburnt torch. The light did little to assure Kovarlin he was making progress as he wheeled about to find the next gateway concealed beneath a cascade of rubble the wicked winds had deposited there. Even so far down into the earth, having drained so much of himself into the walls of the oubliette, Kovarlin couldn’t help but feel discouraged, wanting to again see the sun. Yet, the day would not warm his heart as much as it might warm his weary bones. The deal was made, though still required completion.

Finding the basin set into the stonework that had tempted him to over-exert himself on his initial sighting of it, the puma let open his wrist. The slice was considerable but not nearly enough to be lethal on its own. Were it to prove too much, the Goredrinker would mend the flesh just enough to permit Kovarlin to heal. If the process were not so terribly long in recovery, Kovarlin was confident the old creature would force him to drain himself dry until he reached the inner sanctum. With the well satiated, the door slid back, allowing the debris to fall in on itself.

Kovarlin pulled free one of the many strips of cloth his cloak had been and fixed it over his wound despite its clotting. With the tourniquet tight, he flexed his muscles before forcing them taut. Taking a sharp breath in, Kovarlin burst forward and launched himself over the rubble that would otherwise have been a burden to climb. The various shattered vessels and armaments of days gone would have poked and penetrated, and though they would never succeed fatally, it would be a burdensome waste. He regarded the pile once more as he cleared it, noting a shield concaved in the wrong direction and a plethora of glassy-looking artifacts that may have fit together at one time. They were horrid things, not unlike the monuments on the grounds of the Darkstalker’s cathedral.

And just like those monstrous things that were not hinting at any resemblance to a creature that walked, stalked, or crawled within the earth of the day came from the black void of the descending path, something entirely alien. It clattered and moaned and banged its way from the depths of the corridor to the newly opened entrance. Kovarlin could see it rising and falling a long way off as it made its way up, but he would not have believed his eyes without the aid of the light. Once the figure, massive in size, enough to nearly fill the space alone, was almost within reach, the fire’s radiance fell across it.

Despite being adorned in what must have been armored, if not some other metallic casing, the creature ate light more than reflected it. A dampness sleeked the carapace but was not excluded from touching the flesh that lay beneath, though it was hardly any skin that warm bodies would know. They were like the oversized plates of so many sub-aquatic things the old ships would haul in on mass and, in short order, turn to rations and various wares. Yet, to think they would be able to snare one of this size, to slay it, or drag it in was well into the realm of impossibility to the puma. Even one of the scales removed from this reptilian beast would serve better as attire for a home than a man.

One rifted blue eye sought and found Kovarlin as the creature began to slow, and though it fixed on him, it did not attack. For a moment, it seemed to the puma that this monstrosity was about to rear back and launch itself forward to snatch him in its jaws, but that was when he saw for himself the lack of facility there. The bottom half of the mouth hung slack, not in a yawning stretch or widening to accommodate, but in the broken manner of a spent fighter. Blood did not gush, nor bone protrude from the fleshy space around the maw. Faintly, the glint of light from behind unveiled loose teeth, some hanging near enough out to scrape the floor. This thing was beyond its ability to devour even such small prey as a lone puma. Kovarlin shuffled backward to the inside wall, knowing retreat was not within his ability. As he did, the goliath darted forward as though waiting to have the path clear for its bulk.

The serpentine ancient did not bother an ounce of its time or strength for the puma. As soon as he was clear, the creature crammed itself into the opening and the adjacent corridor. Though Kovarlin could not see its claws furtively dig at the interior of the other space, he could hear the grinding of timeless stone as it tried to pull itself through. In its struggle, it peeled away the layers of armor that had themselves grown and grafted into its scaly hide. With a great deal of wrenching, the material fell away and shattered like porcelain against the stonework, leaving only heaps of ruin and the sticking tiles of its flesh. The tail whipped frantically, half trapped by the adornments that had fallen carelessly to the floor. Yet, after one more bought of wrenching, the eel was slithering free from the dripping chamber and into the further maze of the temple.

So taken aback was Kovarlin that it was not until the thing was out of sight that he recalled the chambers he had pushed through to reach the current level. Above and ahead were rooms he had hardly been able to crawl through, the floor and ceiling nearly touching. And there were chambers kitted out with obstacles that a clumsier body would have no difficulty in striking. It was hard to imagine the old blood hadn’t known these threats. How else would it have reached these depths? But there was little to do for it now. If it careened into pendulous blades, crushed itself between unstable walls, or any number of fates that awaited the unguided, it was of no concern.

Gazing up, Kovarlin noted the porous nature of the ceiling as he had seen in other levels of the temple. They were intended to serve as catch-alls to the more narrow holes one would stand on when crossing said floor. If blood could be drained from anyone who entered or tried to flee the forgotten palace of gore, they would give alms of the most holy currency. And deep below, Pai’gen would feed on that new flesh and become all the more whole for it. Yet, even all that could be juiced from the flesh of that reptilian was not enough.

There was still much to be done, and though blood would lubricate the affair, open paths and further hatchways that would bring the puma into the greatest depths of the oubliette, his paws were needed as well. It wouldn’t be enough to sacrifice a village or army or tribe entirely within the temple, even midway down. Pai’gen had made it clear enough in his descent. There were antiquated locks and bars that held fast the deeper depths. Had he known it in the age that had proceeded this, he would have had his consort come lower after giving over all that blood. But the day of those things had grown short, and that devotee had become a coward. And though Kovarlin was not a subject of his flesh, not in the way the shrike before he had been, he would make the entire journey. Weary as he was, from lack of blood, stale and molded foods, and that radiant energy the light bestowed, Kovarlin convinced his feet to shamble on further into the dark.