A Different Kind of Despair (11 page)

We ran for several minutes, going deeper into
the caverns until we reached an imposing set of cast iron doors.
Diana threw them open, my arms channeling a strength far beyond
human capacity.

This was the Morgue, and the Pit was at the
far end of the room. A memory of falling stung me like a thorn.
Falling and landing upon the cold and dirty ground, broken,
bleeding...

I sank to my knees, whimpering.

"Diana?" When I opened my eyes I couldn't see
Marvin, but a man with a face identical to him. The difference
rested most strongly in the way he looked at me, pitying and
certain. My heart fluttered and broke all together.

"Her body isn't strong enough to maintain the
possession," Diana struggled. "Marvin, barricade the
Morgue."

He didn't question the order.

Diana's spirit fled its temporary shell. I
heaved against the frozen floor, sweat pouring down my skin. I
never knew the powers of a Shaman could be this
agonizing.

"Miraj," Diana spoke to me, once again in her
ancient, stormy pall. "I need you to get a hold of yourself. If I
need to relay something to Marvin then you're the only one who can
help."

"Marvin," I muttered, my eyes roving the
surroundings.

He stood at the edge of the Pit, uttering
Runes.

Runes?

"Gah! I can't tell whose thoughts are whose
anymore!"

I heard the grotesque sound of skin and bones
breaking from the Pit. Marvin's hand was bleeding as he chanted. I
gazed in awe as a humanoid being emerged from the gaping hole,
blood still leaking off its monolithic frame.

"Four lines," Diana mused, impressed. "He's
improved."

I wasn't going to ask questions; I already
knew far too much useless information that came along with the few
tidbits I actually wanted. The abilities of a Shaman were
terrifying to behold, and wreaked havoc upon me in droves when I
used them.

If only I'd told Koronos off an hour ago all
of this could have been avoided!

"
Master
," the creature groaned.
"
What is my name
?"

"Uhh Two."

"
Achoo. Achoo confirmed.
"

Marvin slapped himself in the face.

Diana cackled, "He never learns."

All four of us, living and otherwise, turned
to the doors. Someone was outside; just one soul.

This individual didn't try to open the door,
nor did they attempt to force their way through. Instead, I saw the
outline of a form walk through it entirely, limned in the
mysterious fabric of the Grey.

"Spirit?" I questioned.

As though in direct response to my confusion,
that outline became solid. Marvin, Diana and I gaped at an
emaciated woman as her heels clacked against the floor.

Her eyes were pointed, and her black hair was
streaked in a most unnatural way. We locked gazes, her and I. I
could feel an undeniable connection to this older woman in my
blood. Those were no ordinary grey strands from age; she bore those
all her life. It was ori'tua -a moon mark. She was of the Shinya
tribe.

And if her body could pass through the Grey
then it meant she was a Shaman-

"-mother!?"

Marvin waned at the woman's sudden
appearance.

Somewhere in the Great Beyond I knew Ayasha
was laughing.

Marvin's mother crouched over me, her thin
lips pursed to the side.

"Foolish girl," she scowled. "You're lucky you
only grazed the Overflow threshold."

Diana spotted my quizzical look, and set out
with an explanation, "All magic users have an Overflow limit, where
the power they try to channel exceeds their physical capabilities.
It can maim a mage or kill them if they aren't careful."

"You tell me this
now
?" I
withered.

The Shaman cast a hand across my eyes. "Lie
still. The Morgue will be safe for a few minutes more." She craned
her neck at Marvin. "As for you, my son, there's no way to escape
Nethermountain at present. The Crone already stationed Soma brutes
at every exit -including those leading to the Moor."

Marvin pointed upwards, at the oculus above
the Pit.

His mother shook her head.

"Wires coated with Astheneia poison; if you're
not cut to pieces then you'll die of miasma alone."

He came forward with his new golem in tow. I
felt a twinge of joy at the concern I saw as he looked at me. I did
my best to smile, but even the muscles in my face felt
exhausted.

"How come you're here, then? Actually, how did
you even get in?"

"The girl had the right of things," his mother
said simply. "I'm Shaman of the Shinya people."

"You're
what
? I thought you lived in
Nethermountain since you were a child."

"And so I have." She tucked an errant
moon-marked strand back behind her ear. I studied her face,
realizing its harsh hollowness was more the result of cosmetics
than actual bone structure. "As did my mother and her mother before
her. Nethermountain  is rife with corpses, and where bodies
lie their souls are apt to follow. This place is as much a center
of research as it is a training ground for spirit
mediums."

A vein in his forehead twitched.

"You couldn't have told me?"

"The power could not be passed down to you,
therefore the knowledge was irrelevant. You'd be more useful
ordering that golem to keep sentry at the doors than bothering me
with your asinine questions."

Marvin was fuming, but he didn't talk back,
waving Achoo over with his hand.

I struggled to sit up. His mother helped
me.

"You may call me Formosa," she announced. "I
heard the gist of your story from that imbecile father of yours -my
condolences for both your loss and your unfortunate relations to
that crude man."

I cracked a grin, recalling the exchange
between Larry and Leo earlier. Crude was certainly one way to put
it.

"Leo!" I gasped. "And Will! What happened to
them?"

"They're trapped with the others," Formosa
explained. "The Crone had Astheneia runners summon necromancers
from every House to her domain. I was there as well, but in a sea
of people that large it was a simple matter to get 'lost' and slip
into the Grey."

"Trapped?" Marvin approached us once Achoo
completed his orders. He helped me get on my feet. "What was her
excuse to summon the Houses?"

Formosa rose with uncanny grace, her every
movement perfectly controlled, and in that sense,
lethal.

"Apart from Larry and your
companions, no one else knew you'd returned to Nethermountain. You
are also quite the changed man from the last time you were here.
Even I, your own mother, barely recognized you," she snipped,
tempering her glare with a frozen element. "We
will
discuss that, by the way -at a
later date."

There was a tinge of real fear in Marvin's
eyes, something I found bizarre to put mildly.

The bond between a mother and her children was
deemed sacred above all others. Certainly, there was a time for
discipline and order, but there was always love. By comparison, I
felt nothing of the sort between Marvin and Formosa. There was
grudging respect; more for civility and decorum than for one
another. I wondered whether the Shinya tribe, in staying with the
necromancers for so long, had deadened their compassion in order to
better acclimate themselves to this world.

"You don't seem surprised that the Crone is a
demon," I noted. "I only found out moments before you
arrived."

Marvin linked a protective arm around my
waist, pulling me closer to him. "Miraj has a point."

Formosa snorted, "Had you never taken that
Doll from its box you would have learned soon enough."

"You
knew
the Crone was a demon?" he
balked. "All this time and you didn't say anything to
anyone?"

The woman pressed her fingers to her temple
with a scowl.

"All members of House Thanos knew... before we
were decimated, at least. That knowledge could be traced all the
way back to Inval himself; Thanos was the only disciple he trusted
with the information."

"
Lies
!" Diana hissed in my ear. I
motioned to the spirit, certain Formosa could see her just as
clearly as I did.

"Lady Galatea was too precious to him -and of
a weak constitution," Formosa explained. "Thanos, while a brooding
character on all accounts, had silence as a defining
characteristic. Inval knew that if he told his pupil to take this
secret to his grave then he would."

"Obviously he didn't," Marvin countered. "Not
if a whole House knew about it."

"An order came with it," she
replied, her tone clipped. "Thanos would become the policing force
for all other Houses. When experiments go awry, when necromancers
go mad from grief, when toxic environs are created as a result of
careless hands and idiotic blunders, Thanos and all members of his
House were called to remedy the situation. We are the
only
ones permitted to
kill our own; the judge, jury, and executioners of
Nethermountain."

"That still tells us nothing on why Inval
knowingly consorted with a demon," I stated.

"It s known that the Crone of Astheneia was
already living in Nethermountain when Inval struck a deal with her
to settle here," Formosa explained. "Marvin, what does that tell
you?"

Marvin blinked slowly.

"I can't believe I didn't see it."

"See what?" I quizzed.

"It's basic lore," he said, turning to me.
"Everyone knows Inval struck a deal with the Crone to share
Nethermountain. If he knew she was a demon from that point then he
must've entered a Contract with her. We already know that he did
something to rile the demons -that's probably where it all
started." He glanced back as his mother. "Did Inval tell Thanos
what he promised the Crone in exchange for living here?"

Formosa nodded solemnly.

"In exchange for the Crone's hospitality and
guidance, Inval swore to resurrect Ayasha."

Ayasha?

Inval lived hundreds of years ago. Ayasha was
the Womb of the World, ancient and unfathomable and-

"-how?!" I demanded. "What was his relation to
Ayasha?"

"Of what little we know?" Formosa asked. "It's
uncertain, but it comes down to two possibilities. The first being
that Inval was favored by her; the second, he was infatuated. The
Tribes were only just begun; it is more than possible Inval was
descended from them."

"He didn't," Diana disagreed. "Inval told me
he hailed from the swampland to the southeast."

"It doesn't
matter
where he came
from or even what his relation was to Ayasha," Formosa snapped.
"Not in these circumstances at least. The Crone has barred all
other necromancers in the halls of House Astheneia. She revealed
her true nature and threatened to slaughter them all if they didn't
order their undead to search Nethermountain and bring Marvin back
to her."

She glanced at her son.

"It's fortunate you didn't make a grand
entrance. I only wish you'd sought me out first; I knew she was
plotting something since she retrieved the Eyes of the Leviathan
from Leo in your stead."

Marvin sighed.

Something was missing in all of
this.

"...if hardly anyone knew, then how was the
Crone alerted?" I asked.

Everyone looked at me.

"Koronos," I answered my own question a moment
later. "Koronos lured me to the attic to talk to Diana, enough time
to leave Marvin unprotected."

Marvin frowned at me. "What did I say about
talking to him?"

"He tricked me!"

"He played on your emotions and you gave in to
the temptation."

"Silence!" Formosa yelled at him, slicing her
hand through the air. "Koronos? A second demon? Explain this to me
first."

Marvin lifted the hem of his pants, exposing
his skeletal shins.

"I accidentally made a deal with him," he
explained sheepishly. "If I could turn Diana human again then he'd
become my servant until I died. I transferred her Doll Contract
onto me and had Will amputate the part of me that changed in order
to halt the process."

It was comical to see Formosa's sour veneer
crumble into an awed concern -suggesting that she cared more for
her son than she was willing to admit.

"Then why is Diana dead?"

He flinched.

Diana's ghost also sagged behind him, so close
it was almost laughable, but too tragic to do anything but
listen.