Savior of Istara (2 page)

In the aftermath of the home
invasion, I darted from shadow to shadow, alleyway to alleyway,
evading the countless patrols hounding for my blood.

So much effort for one
troublesome girl, I thought grimly.

A number of large fires lit
the night sky, blotting out all but the brightest stars. Either the
original conflagration had spread across the city in record time or
betrayal had spread amongst the populace faster than any
wildfire.

Despair nearly conquered me
then as it had Istara. I sunk to my lowest point that infamous
Night of a Thousand Pyres, for each pillar of flame symbolized the
loss of family, friends, and allies—martyrs for the cause, one and
all. Too many of those I held near and dear were undoubtedly
amongst them…or would likely be joining them soon. Like my mother,
whisked away by the rough hands of foreign devils to whereabouts
unknown.

Something had to be done.
And I’d be the one to do it.

Clad piecemeal in garb
borrowed from several neighbors’ lines, I avoided the wandering
patrols until the wan light of a new day touched the predawn sky.
Shelter had to be found before merciless Shamash crested the
horizon, somewhere safe to lick my wounds and plan my vengeance on
the foul men of Golthus as well as the traitors who’d sold us out
to their new masters.

The bastards would pay, I
swore to all the gods that morn.

But where would I go? More
importantly, who could I afford to trust at this point? No place
felt safe enough now that neighbor had turned against neighbor. And
no living soul seemed trustworthy enough anymore.

Shamash provided the answer
soon enough. As Mother Sun rose over the high wall to the east, the
Shining Lady’s rays caused the dome of Her cathedral to radiate as
brightly as the Goddess Herself on this most melancholy of
mornings. Though Her light illumed my way, I sought my sanctuary
amongst the shadows.

At the base of the massive
Temple of Shamash, monuments of masonry and stone dotted the dusty
rolling hills of the city cemetery. A series of irregular
structures marked the private crypts of prominent families as well
as the entrances to the main catacombs below the vast
necropolis.

From the complex maze
beneath the cemetery, most of the city itself could be accessed via
a labyrinthine series of sewers and tunnels. And few knew them
better, for I had spent many hours studiously copying maps of them
for use during the Siege of Istara. And somehow it seemed fitting
to take my refuge among the only ones I could trust anymore to keep
my location secret: the dead.

Stealing forth from the
recesses of an alleyway between two ancient tenements, I raced
across the deserted avenue separating Istara’s living residents
from its deceased.

Propelling me deep within
the expansive necropolis, my leaden legs worked through my
exhaustion. And their weary muscles guided me better than any map,
carrying me directly to the entryway of the all-too-familiar crypt
of the Viligotti family.

Between Serra’s fairy-tale
funeral and my subsequent visitations in the years since her death,
I’d been here more times than I cared to admit. But I’d never had
the daring or the desire to descend into its twisting passages to
visit with the mummified remains of my dearly departed childhood
friend.

Until now.

The exterior trigger
mechanism yielded to my touch, opening the heavy iron door long
enough for me to slip into the building unmolested. However, once
it swung shut behind me with a dull thud, I realized that I had no
clue as to the location of the interior trigger, assuming the
mausoleum came equipped with such a device. But another pressing
problem persisted.

Few people experienced
absolute darkness in their lifetime; but here in the inky interior
of the crypt, I did for the first time. Instead of panic gripping
me, calmness washed over me. The darkness enveloped me, comforting
me, protecting me from the prying eyes of my would-be
pursuers.

I blundered along in the
lightless structure, feeling my way about the crypt-lined wall of
the mausoleum. At that moment, I knew not what I touched, but my
haggard mind imagined all types of unseen horrors. Thanks to a cool
breeze emanating from the back of the chamber, I found the narrow
stairs to the catacombs beneath the surface of the cemetery.
Fortunately, I managed to locate them without plummeting to my
death.

Safely navigating the
staircase in the pitch black proved to be another matter entirely.
My wide feet made it less than a half dozen narrow steps into the
abyss before they betrayed me.

I stumbled and then tumbled
through pain into unending darkness, a palpable one that washed
over me as my body landed in a heap on the cold stone at the bottom
of the stairs.

Twice in the same cycle, I
slept…and dreamed of Serra.

Her widowed father had
fancied Mother, becoming a frequent caller to our humble shop
shortly after my own father left us. So Serra and I had played
together almost every day. And we had the grandest adventures,
whether it involved enacting imaginary ones from old books or
finding our own on the streets of Istara.

Eventually, the angelic
raven-haired daughter of the well-bred Clan Viligotti chose a
lowborn mutt with coarse, tangled hair as her best friend. And I
loved her for it. I really did.

Through the fog of sleep, my
thoughts turned to the fateful day when I’d displayed my affection
for her openly, honestly. We’d shocked all the boys in my
neighborhood when they’d found us kissing innocently enough in the
alleyway behind Mother’s shop. Serra enjoyed my embrace and the
soft feel of my lips on hers before the idiots surrounding us began
to point and stare, turning a private display of affection into
public humiliation.

Embarrassed and red faced,
Serra had fled from me, from our first embrace, and tragically
enough, our final one. Tears irrigated her cheeks as the boys’
hoots, howls, and catcalls echoed off the buildings on either side
of the alleyway.

When she reached the street,
Serra cast her eyes back at me one last time. Either her
tear-blurred vision failed to see the runaway horse cart or the
prospect of a social death terrified my naive companion greater
than a bodily one could at that age. Had she simply not lived long
enough to learn that humiliation could be painful but one rarely
died of embarrassment?

To this day, I don’t know
the answer. And although Serra Viligotti died before my very eyes,
not once but twice in my lifetime, I never summoned the strength of
will to ask her.

My unconscious mind spared
me the torment of having to relive her grisly death under the
iron-shod wheels of a drunk’s cart. But it did not prepare me for
the fresh horrors I’d face upon waking in those cold catacombs
beneath my beloved Istara.

I fell into darkness but
awoke bathed in light. Pain coursed through my body as intensely as
the torchlight flooding my open orbs. Gradually, I focused on
gauging my location rather than the condition of my throbbing,
possibly broken body.

My immediate surroundings
consisted of a chiseled sandstone chamber lit by torches ensconced
along both walls. Countless indistinct figures crowded the room.
Each one of them seemed to stare with their hollow eyes,
questioning my very presence here.

Where had I regained
consciousness? Had I been captured and thrown into one of Istara’s
dungeons? Had a caretaker seen my plight and come to my aid? Or had
I fallen to my death only to awaken in one of the Nine
Hells?

Gingerly rolling onto my
left side, I spied a staircase carved into the sandstone itself
along with the identifying crest of Clan Viligotti. Dried blood and
broken arrows retold the sorry story of my ignoble entry into the
Viligotti family crypt. I’d escaped death and imprisonment in my
own home to nearly find it in the tomb of a childhood
friend.

I’d been spared again. But
why? And for what purpose?

Was Serra watching over me
even now? Was that the feeling I couldn’t shake, the sense of
someone staring at me?

When the answer confronted
me an instant later, my heart skipped a beat as I fought to stifle
a scream. Turning my head toward the opposite wall, my improvised
sleeping arrangements became clear…clearly disturbing, for I lay at
the feet of the desiccated, doll-like remains of Serra
Viligotti.

Despite the layer of dust on
the glass lid of the coffin, her funeral finery shimmered in the
flickering light of the tomb’s torches as if untouched by age or
decay. Her dark locks curled about her face, framing her sunken
cheeks and flattened, lifeless eyes. The priests of Eresh, Lady
Death, did fine work.

I wish I could say that
strength and resolve filled me anew at that point. But it would
take more to push me to my final desperate act than the mere sight
of my best friend, my first love, on display in a gallery of
skulls, skeletons, and mummies.

Despair washed over me
instead. I wept pitifully, my sore ribs hitching painfully as I
wrapped my arms around her coffin. Urgency and haste meant nothing
here in the halls of the dead, despite my pledge to save my mother
and the others. For now, I needed to grieve properly. Not just for
Serra but for all those I’d lost over the years without taking the
time to mourn.

Fresh tears begat fresh
prayers. But this time I didn’t pray to our Creator, Kahl the
All-Father, for the wisdom to find meaning in their deaths. Not to
haughty Shamash for the return of rightful rule to my beloved city.
Nor did I call upon her daughter, Ishta’Kahl, Goddess of the Moon,
for the restoration of my health or protection from my
enemies.

No, on this rare occasion, I
beseeched Eresh and the other gods of the Underworld to be more
merciful in death to those I’d lost during the Siege of Istara than
the gods of the Overworld had been to them in life.

The eerie sensation of being
watched did not end with the cessation of my prayers…or my tears.
As I dried my eyes, I scanned the ghoulish gallery around me. The
remains of nobles, knights, merchants, and clergymen lined the
walls of the crypt. But neither their vacant eyes nor those of
their loyal wives and servants accounted for my feelings of
paranoia.

And then I saw it. A gaunt
figure clad in the plain white robe of an ascetic stood in the
shadowy recesses of the archway at the far end of the chamber. The
garment’s voluminous hood concealed the identity of the mysterious
voyeur. As a result, I couldn’t see its face…or even if it had one.
But I felt the intensity of its gaze boring into me as if it fell
not upon my flesh but on my soul.

I eyed it warily, wearily.
But it did not move as I rose from the cold stone floor of the
crypt. As I regained my footing, I realized that, despite being
sore and badly bruised, I remained unbroken. Beneath the layer of
dried blood and grime, my wounds had been mended. Even the burns on
my body had faded to telltale pinkish scars, evidence of
Aethyr-fueled healing.

Could it be the High Priest
of Lady Death Herself? One who’d been beyond the Veil took vows of
silence to keep from revealing secrets of the Underworld to the
uninitiated. After all, their order had engineered the catacombs of
the necropolis in the wake of the Cataclysm. And had maintained it
ever since.

Clearly, whoever, whatever
was watching me from the shadows did not intend to harm me. If so,
it’d passed on a prime chance as I’d lain broken and unconscious at
the bottom of the stairs.

For once in my short life, I
found myself at a loss for words. Smiling toothily, I offered my
only means of gratitude.

The robed figure nodded
slowly, solemnly. And then it turned away, disappearing into the
darkness beyond the archway.

I felt compelled to follow,
but I loathed the idea of leaving Serra behind. It didn’t feel
right after so many years apart. But I reminded myself that she had
only taken on the appearance of a doll and belonged with her
ancestors. Before venturing into the dark, I hazarded a glance back
at my friend, in case I never laid eyes upon her again.

Torches lining the walls of
the next chamber flared to life, lighting my way through the rest
of the Viligotti family crypt. On either side of me, mummified and
skeletal remains lined the walls, most of them wearing antiquated
fashions.

Already at the end of the
long room, my rescuer moved quicker than I’d first anticipated.
Despite the lingering pain, I hastened my pace, rounding corner
after corner until the architecture shifted from the plain
arch-and-column designs common in Baax cities to more decorative
Ireti-inspired imagery, due to the influences of each conquering
Empire on the next. The farther I descended into the heart of the
necropolis below Istara, the closer I drew to its origins, rooted
in the chaotic days following the Cataclysm that had ended Faltyr’s
Golden Age.

I couldn’t seem to catch the
figure leading me through the catacombs. Somehow the perambulating
priest managed to remain one turn ahead of me. But pain blurred my
perception of time, and the shifting shadows played hell with my
ability to judge distance in the torch-lit tunnels. For all I knew,
my pace could’ve been that of the tortoise…or the hare.