…
They left West Farthing as soon as the sun was up the next morning, riding away from the still-sleeping village. A farmer, digging in one of the outlying fields, saw the direction they were riding in and called out to them.
“Mornin’ to yeh good travellers,” he said, ambling in their direction. He stopped at the wall that marked the field’s boundary, leaning on his hands and eyeing them up and down. “I don’t mean ter pry, but yeh don’t wan’ ter be goin’ in tha’ direction.”
“We go where we will,” Ferast said tersely.
“But tha’ way lies the Ruins,” the farmer said, looking at him with a mixture of surprise and suspicion.
“Which is exactly where we want to go,” Ferast said, losing all patience with the interfering peasant.
The farmer made a protective sign over his heart. “God protect yeh then,” he mumbled and retreated into the field, casting nervous glances back in their direction as they rode on.
“That’s three,” Ferast said out loud, earning him another inscrutable look from Bork. Ferast decided that if he didn’t find Shirukai Sestin in the Ruins, he was going to pay the villagers of West Farthing an extended visit to repay their hospitality.
West Fart
hing lay twenty miles from the Ruins, a journey that would take most of the day to complete. Eager to get there before nightfall, Ferast set a fast pace. As usual they rode in silence, the long legs of their horses eating up the miles as the hours passed. They stopped briefly for lunch and rode on again through the afternoon until the terrain became hilly. The hills swelled in size as they travelled, until at last they came to a tall, forested slope that led up to the rim of the city itself. Knowing his destination was just over the lip of the hill, he urged his horse forward, kneeing it through the trees and up the steep slope until it was breathing heavily. Bork’s horse, struggling with a heavier burden, followed at an increasing distance.
He pressed on up the hill, funnelled into a crevasse that was the only obvious way to the top. Several hundred yards further on, he came to a low wall, on the other side of which was the skeleton of a horse, its bleached bones stripped bare by scavengers. He stopped his horse, looking at the corpse in surprise. So people
did
come here sometimes, even if it was just to die. Stilled by an instinctive need for caution, he waited for Bork to catch up with him. When the mute arrived, they stopped for a moment to rest the horses. Eager to keep moving, he only gave the exhausted beasts twenty minutes to crop the grass before remounting and carrying on. The sun was already setting, and he wanted to enter the Ruins while it was still light.
The ground flattened out after that, and they moved at a steady trot into the outlying buildings of what must once have been a great city. The first buildings came and went, delicate looking constructions in pale colours that were slowly being reclaimed by the forest. He couldn’t help noticing that even the most out-flung of Elmera’s dwellings had a certain opulence. The
obvious evidence of wealth built his hope that he had finally found Shirukai Sestin’s lair. It would take more than rumours to keep looters away from this place! If it wasn’t Sestin keeping them out, then it was someone else, or perhaps some
thing
else! Suddenly he felt nervous.
“Bork, stay alert,” he said edgily as they rode deeper into the city. The mute nodded without looking at him, his head
swivelling slowly left and right as they rode. The outer dwellings soon became more organised, grouped into streets and then boulevards. Spacious mansions and municipal buildings dotted the wider streets, dwarfing the smaller houses of the outlying roads. It was then that the corpses began to appear, lying in the street and in gardens, dark piles of bones abandoned to the elements. Many of them were practically overgrown by weeds which had taken root in the inches-thick dust and debris of the long empty streets.
Ferast felt a pervasive sense of dread stirring in his belly and called Bork to a halt while he tried to work out what was causing it. It wasn’t the corpses. He had seen plenty of death in the last few months, most of it at his own hand, and a few corpses didn’t bother him. It was something else, something visceral. He supposed it could be a compulsion
. If Sestin did indeed live here, then he might have embedded an enchantment into the very streets, an emotional illusion designed to scare ordinary people away, but it could also be something more tangible. He nudged his horse forward, but it refused to budge, sweat breaking out over its flanks. A glance told him that Bork’s horse was in the same state. He grimaced. He could numb the horse’s mind to danger easily enough, but that would mean using magic, and he didn’t want to announce his presence yet. He swung himself down from the horse, as did Bork, and the two beasts instantly bolted, carrying their belongings with them.
Cursing, Ferast reached out with his power and brought them to a halt, their simple minds compelled to obey him. They walked over to the horses, which were frozen to the spot in obedience but still trembling with fear. It was too late for caution now.
If Sestin was in the city, he would have detected even that small release of power, so he may as well use the horses after all. Using another compulsion, he assured the creatures that they were safe, smothering their senses in a soothing blanket of reassurance. The horses immediately stopped trembling, and the two men re-mounted. Turning them around, they headed back towards the heart of the city.
Ferast glanced at Bork, wondering if perhaps the mercenary might need a calming touch as well, but although his jaw was tightly clenched, he seemed to be alert and in control, so he left him alone. It was better this way - a soothing illusion of safety might take the edge off Bork’s reactions just when he needed the mute to be razor sharp. He scanned the skyline as they rode, ignoring the growing sense of dread that emanated from his gut and numbed his extremities. A tower stood in the near distance, similar in scale and shape to the one that stood in the heart of the College of Collective Magicks. Instinctively, he felt that was where they should be heading, and they rode on through the wide streets towards the prominent structure.
Large municipal buildings increasingly took the place of the mansions, their entranceways gaping darkly in the waning light. Most of the rooftops had collapsed but a few remained intact, their elegant domes and spires transformed by the fading dusk into looming shapes and shadows, towering threateningly over them as they rode. He glanced at Bork again to see if he was holding up under the strain. Even in the gloaming he could see sweat breaking out on the mute’s normally inscrutable face. He was about to reach out with a trickle of power to take the edge of the mute’s fear when he was seized by a sudden sense of malicious scrutiny. He stopped dead. There was something nearby - a terrible, unnatural something that had him in its sights.
Taking care not to make any sudden movements, he slowly climbed down off his horse and turned to face the darkened entranceway to what might once have been a library. The malignant intelligence he could sense was watching them from within the cavernous dark. He reached into his pocket and drew out a Darkgem, holding it tightly in his left hand, its hard facets biting reassuringly into his sweaty palm.
Fear threatened to swamp him then, spiking through his being in uncontrollable waves. A scuffling noise told him that Bork had also dismounted, and the two men faced the entranceway, almost incapacitated by terror. Ferast’s skin prickled in the unnatural stillness as he waited for the horror to reveal itself. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it throbbing at his temples.
Without warning, something massive came boiling out of the darkness. Ferast froze, stung into immobility by overwhelming dread. The monster, for surely that was all it could be called, was a bristling mound of flesh, a horrendous amalgamation of body parts bound together in one great lump, like some kind of giant, murderous slug. It was enormous, many times the size of a man, topped by a rotting human head that eyed them hungrily. It moved faster than Ferast could believe possible for a creature of such size, scampering over the ground on large, malformed appendages that protruded from beneath its bulk. Worst of all, another human face stared out at him from the centre of the beast’s chest. Its sagging, fear-filled face and darting eyes spoke of perpetual torment in a way that horrified even Ferast’s calloused heart.
It would have taken him then if not for Bork. With a loud ringing sound, the mute drew his broadsword and leapt at the creature, bringing the heavy blade down in a deadly arc that cut right through the nearest of its grasping limbs. Rearing back in pain, the creature bellowed, the fearsome sound enough to wake Ferast from his horrified stupor. Drawing on the full force of the Darkgem, he hit it with the hardest force strike he could muster. It tumbled backwards, bellowing in fury, but far too soon it had righted itself and was rushing at them again. Ferast reached out with his power, attempting to control the creature’s mind, but the consciousness he encountered was unfamiliar. It had none of the handles that enabled him to control an ordinary human mind. There was no fear, no self-perception, no belief. Just a fierce hunger for killing, and for something much worse. Ferast’s grasping hand of control found no purchase on the creature’s mind, sliding uselessly off without even touching it.
Mortal terror truly gripped him then as he watched death approach. This creature was no natural monster - it was demonic. He’d sensed something of its intentions from its alien mind. It wasn’t just going to kill them - it was going to take their bodies and absorb them into its bulk, nourishing itself on their recently living flesh. Swamped by fear, he summoned power in a last desperate attempt to stay out of its clutches. He wouldn’t become like the face in its chest. He wouldn’t let it take him. He raised his fists, energy swirling around his hands as he prepared to obliterate both him and Bork.
The creature reared up like a leviathan about to strike, but then a sphere of red light sprang into being around them, separating them from the monster. Holding back his deadly spell, Ferast looked about in confusion - he hadn’t summoned the sphere. He didn’t even know
how
to summon such a thing. Undeterred, the creature smashed its enormous body down on them, only to crash against the shield with tremendous force and slide off onto the ground. Shaking its head in confusion, it picked itself up and heaved its fetid bulk into the air again, ready to strike, but then a figure walked out of the darkness, an arm raised and pointing at the creature.
“Sestin!” Ferast hissed under his breath. The enormous creature that had been about to end his life took one look at the robed figure and flinched, the sudden movement rippling through its decaying flesh like a wave. Cringing, it turned and shuffled back towards the dark interior of the building it had been hiding in. The red globe disappeared. Ferast couldn’t believe it. They were saved!
“Shirukai Sestin,” he said eagerly, reaching out a hand to the red-robed figure in front of him. The figure moved his right hand in a rapid, circular motion, and he crumpled to the ground, blackness swamping his vision as he plunged into unconsciousness.
Ferast blinked gritty eyes as he sought to shake off what felt like a thousand years of sleep. He felt heavy, his face numb, his limbs leaden. He tried to remember where he was and how he got here. With the greatest effort he lifted his head, trying to make sense of the little he could see in the dim light. He was in a very small room, lit by a single tiny window above him. The room had a rounded door set into the far wall, and was just wide enough to hold the pallet he was lying on and allow room for someone to stand up next to it. He forced himself to sit up, trying to think clearly, but it was like trying to swim through soup.
Frowning, he rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and shook his head to try and clear the fog, but it didn’t help. Just then, the door swung open and Ferast found himself staring at a red-robed figure, his hood pulled back to reveal a long, angular face with skin so tight that it shone like polished leather. He looked to be about thirty, with a full head of black hair wetted and combed back against his skull. Dark eyes held him mercilessly in their penetrating gaze.
“Follow,” the figure said, and Ferast found himself standing and walking out of the cell. It wasn’t as if someone else was moving his limbs, but he didn’t remember choosing to do it either, and as he followed the mysterious figure along a winding, narrow corridor, he realised one thing with much greater clarity than anything else: he was helpless. Rebellion surged in him then. He didn’t know why he was here or who this person was, but he wasn’t about to allow himself to feel helpless. He pushed out instinctively with his will, testing the boundaries of whatever was holding him captive, but immediately the figure turned around and stared him down fiercely.
“Stop that right now,” he said, and Ferast obeyed him without question, shocked into compliance by the instinctive knowledge that whoever this person was, they could snuff out his life in a heartbeat. After that he followed in silence. The red-robed figure turned left off the corridor and they entered a broad hallway, from which an elegant stairway swept upwards into darkness. The robed man led him briskly up the polished marble staircase. After a couple of minutes of climbing Ferast was wheezing, struggling to keep up with his captor, but he was bound by the same compulsion that made him follow the figure in the first place, and he put all his effort into keeping up, not letting himself fall behind for even a moment. The man in front of him didn’t seem to be breathing heavily, or tiring in any obvious way.