Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (8 page)

He wonders if they
’
re associated with the mages, or if they
are
the mages. 

The mages.  I was trying to remember something about the mages.

They lead him through the remains of
the
crumbling
city
. 
Most of the buildings have collapsed. 
The earth underfoot is old clay.  Wreckage
lies
everywhere, and he sees the lonely skeletons of the city’s long-lost inhabitants.

Up above, the clouds roil like a dark sea.

T
he children enter one of the
few standing
structures
.  They pass through a crooked archway beneath what
might
have
once
been the leering face of a demonic lion,
but
now
the stone
is too dark for him to tell. 

He
hesitates.
  He feels fear like a lead weight.

The mages.  I can’t
remember.  There’s something about them that I need to remember…something important.

Without another thought, he follows.

Cross had entered
other
structures
in that strange world
before,
but
this
sense of
clarity, this cleansing, had
never
before
occurred
.  He’d never found himself shielded from the roar of the black w
ind and the touch of the tainted world
.

The
inside
of the tower looked like
an
abandoned outpost.  Tattered grey flags dangled in
air
that
reeked
of age and
tasted like soot
.  The floor was littered with drifts of cold ash and the charred remains of broken furniture. 

Aside from
the open doorway
, which
led to
air so suffused
with darkness it
was
like
black gelatin, the only other
way out of
the stark room
was a
ricke
ty wooden
staircase
leading up.  He took
it
. 

Each step rattled and creaked
beneath his weight
. 
M
otes of dust floated down from the ceiling.  The only light came from ambient worms
clinging to the walls
.  For all
Cross could tell
they were long dead, but their bodies still shone with a phosphorescent shine that turned
everything
a shade of
sick green.

He passed alcoves filled with the bones of unknown animals.  Small slits in the outer walls grant
ed
vi
ew
of the black landscape. 

His muscles tensed as he ascended the
final
few steps.

The upper floor of the tower was a single large room.  The ceiling was drastically too high for the circumference of the chamber.  The lightning worms were absent there, so only
the barest
details
were visible
in
the light
that
spill
ed
in from the doorway behind him: shattered porcelain dolls,
piles of
shredded clothing, smoking ice
strewn like shattered
glass.  The
room
was quiet
,
and
all
he
heard
was
the tell-tale call of the
stygian
wind
s
.

The children
waited
for him. 
A boy and a girl, both dressed in rags.  They
weren
’
t as large
as they’d
been
outside, where
the
ir appearance had
been
almost troglodytic, preposterous skulls
on
ridiculously small bodies
. 
There in the tower
they were much smaller, and while their flesh
held an
unnatural pallor they
at least
were the size of
normal
children,
only with slightly enlarged eyes. 
T
hey stood stone-
still and stared at
Cross
as he stepped into the chamber.

They weren’
t alone. 

A
monstrous presence waited behind them,
something
t
all and massive but entirely encased in pillars of roving darkness. 
He
squinted to try and
get a better look at
the creature, but whatever it wa
s it
remained just out of sight. 

“Hello,” the boy said.  His voice was flat
and
emotionless.  He moved robotically.

“Um…hello,” Cross said quietly.  He took another step into the room, but he refused to wade too far
in
.  The light behind him couldn’t penetrate the gloom.  He heard something wet in the
shadows
, something sli
thering
.  It coiled and tensed, and he smelled the musk of organic waste, vaguely sexual but putrid.  “What is this place?”

“Shelter
from the storm,” the girl said.  H
er voice
was
equally dead and distant.  Neither
of them
moved an inch.  Cross didn’t think they even breathed.

“Why am I here?”
he asked.

“Only
you
can know that,” the boy said.

“We are not concerned with why you are here,” the girl said.

Cross
stepped sideways, careful to
walk slow and quiet
. 

“What
are
you concerned with?” he asked.

“How to leave,” they both said in tandem, their voices so effortlessly cued to the same frequency it sent shivers up
his
spine. 

“Leave…this tower?”

“The Whisperlands,” they said, and then the boy continued
to talk
on his own.  “I am a prisoner here, just like you.  I have been here for
a
very
long time.”

“What are you?” he asked.  His fingers
slid
towards
Soulrazor/
Avenger
’s grip
.  It had been some time since he’d
remember
the black-and-white sword’s name
s
.  “Why are you talking to me through these…”  He looked at the girl.  It was difficult to see just how lifeless she was in the dark.  “
Through these
things
…
they sure as hell aren’t children.
”

“Your mind could not bear the sight of me,” she said. 

“That’s a little judgmental, isn’t it?” he said with a nervous laugh.

I have no magic
, he
realized
.  He’
d wandered
across
the Whisperlands for what felt like decades, but in
the
mental mire
caused by
the black windscape
the
memory
of his loss
either hadn’t occurred to him
,
or
else it
simply hadn’t mattered. 
The blades
might
not have any of
their
arcane properties here, and I don’t have any other weapons. 
If the
s
e
things
want to kill me, I’m done.

“It is not a matter of judgmen
t, or inclination,” the boy said
.

“It is matter of what you can fathom,” the girl add
ed
.  “And you cannot fathom
me
.”

“You’d be surprised,” Cross said grimly.  “So what do you want
from
me?”

“You wish to escape,” the boy said.  “That is plain.”

“I wish to help you,” the girl add
ed
.  “But I cannot leave this place.”

“Of course,”
Cross said with a nod
.

“Do not doubt me,” the boy s
aid.  The voice was
less human than before. It scratche
d
like steel and glass.  The child
ren
’s eyes
we
re black
.  Shadow veins bulged from their
faces and ma
de
their false flesh paler.  Their feet lift
ed
slightly
off
the ground.

T
endrils attach
ed them to the darkness at the
back
of the room
. 
Flesh
lines hooked into their backs, greasy appendages
dripping slime
in the rigid air.  He couldn’t tell if the bodies were those of actual children or if they were
just
extensions, constructs.  Flesh puppets.

“How can I
not
doubt you?” Cross asked quietly.  He took a step back
towards
to the stairs.  “You won’t show me what you are.”

There was n
o answer. 
He felt the air breath
e
and tense.

And then it showed him. 

Darkness peeled back.  Tendrils of shadow ripped away like frightened snakes.  The
children’s
eyes vanished into puddles of
slime
,
a
nd
the bodies flattened like empty sacks
a
nd
fell to the floor with sickening
slumps
.

The creature was made of soiled skin and shadow orifices.  Its mountainous husk was the height of the room, a pulsating membrane of fish-like flesh and tinted veins.  It had no visible limbs or appendages save the tentacle strands, which melted so seamlessly into its bulk they almost looked like shadows th
emselves.  The entire body had the semblance of
a dark tree trunk, a living pillar of glistening
black
skin fused to the floor. 

Cross’
s
head throbbed
as
he
look
ed
at
the creature, not so much from the grotesquerie of its appearance as from the sheer force of its psychic presence.

Eidolos. 
Cross had heard of the dread race before, but only in rumor.  They were one of the few creatures described in the Tome o
f Scars he’
d never encountered firsthand.
Once-allies (or slaves, or masters, depending on which
story one believed
) of the subterranean giants called the Cruj, the Eidolos were a bizarre earthen-organic race of rocks that had assumed flesh form and bonded with the arcane energies
of
the earth. 
The younger versions took on the form of humanoids, but the older they got, the more they evolved,
and
the less human they appeared. 
Possessed of vastly superior and alien intelligence
s
, the Eidolos were known for their incredible cruelty and dominant psychic powers, which, if the reports were correct, could literally crush a human’s mind if they spent too long in the
creature’s
proximity.  Warlocks and witches were supposedly afforded some measure of resistance due to their arcane spirits. 
Which means
I
m
ight
be
screwed
.