Chapter 6

The Hermetic Order of the Aegis is made up of five sects: The Sect of the Crimson Blade (warriors), The Sect of the Blackened Crown (casters), The Sect of the Burning Hand (craftsmen and engineers), the Sect of the Sightless Eye (spies), and The Sect of the Silent Heart (assassins).

2nd, Igniday, 5648, A.o.t.S.S

The interior of the cave was as expected: dark, dank, and musky. The dark didn’t bother me, given one of the few blessings of being a Darkling. The passage was tight for an adult, but given my thin stature, I was lucky.

I pressed on through the cave, ducking under stalactites and stepping around stalagmites, following the winding passage as it twisted downward. Thallos had said this was a trial, so I needed to be ready for a fight. I heard dripping water and the echo of my footsteps. I could smell damp stone, algae, moss... and something foul. The stench of rotting flesh hung thick in the air.

I slowed my steps, and the farther I pushed, the stronger the stench became. As I neared a bend in the tunnel, I drew my dagger and pressed myself against the wall, listening. At first, nothing. Then, a soft scuttle. A scuff of something across stone. Then the sound of rock tumbling into water.

The stench of rot, scuffing against stone. I had to be dealing with a zombie. I peered around the corner to find something I did not expect and wanted nothing to do with. A tarantula the size of a large dog crouched in the center of a large chamber. Its body was covered in patches of fungus, one of its forelegs was missing, and its swollen abdomen was partly caved in, exposing rotting organs. Congealed black blood fell from the wound in large gobbets.

There was no way I could handle something like that. I had watched shows on the Anogwin Explored Channel that said zombies, while slow and stupid, were also stronger than their living counterparts and far more resilient to damage. The shows always said to aim for the head, but what was I supposed to do when the thing didn’t really have a head? I could try to stab it in the brain, but that would put me face-to-face with it. I had no doubt it would overpower me, inject me with venom, and slurp me up like some kind of meat-shake.

I could feel a panic attack coming on. It started getting hard to breathe. My chest tightened; my heart pounded like a war drum.

I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, willing my muscles to unwind. I opened my eyes and started looking for a way around.

The chamber was semicircular, about twenty yards across. The spider stood near the center, closer to the left-hand wall, near a pool of water of unknown depth. Directly across from me was a cliff edge. Atop the cliff was a path. The rock wall leading up to it looked climbable, but I wasn’t sure if I could reach it without getting mauled.

There was no way I could take the Restless Dead head-on. Maybe I could sneak around it? I looked around for a stone and found one near my foot. I gingerly plucked it from the ground and tossed it underhand. The stone struck the floor with a loud ‘clack’. Half a moment later, the creature crouched and sprung, turning in the air to land on the very spot the rock struck.

So sneaking by was out of the question. One wrong move, and I’d be dead. My heart raced. I turned on my heel to flee. I couldn’t kill. I couldn’t be killed.

I took three steps, about to make a mad dash for the exit, when I was struck with the image of my father dying. A tangled mess of emotions rose up: rage, grief, anguish, regret. I fled inward, hurtling my mind into a memory of him.

“It is natural to take a life, Iver. To kill for food or in defense is the nature of the world.”

“What do you mean?” my seven-year-old self asked as I watched him draw his bow.

“This world is full of things that will want you dead. Bandits, monsters, undead. At some point, something or someone will want you dead. No matter the reason, I expect you to protect yourself. If you want to live, you’re going to need to kill.”

“Father, you mentioned undead. Why do they kill?”

“Because they aren’t natural. The true nature of the Restless Dead is to kill anything they find. They don’t need food, they don’t feel pain, and they have no sense of self-preservation. Iver, undead and even Blightings are abominations. The dead are supposed to stay dead. If you find a rotter, kill it. Put a bullet in its head, burn it, rip it to tatters. You hear me, son?” With those last words, Fermose let loose the arrow to strike dead-center of the target.

Tears streamed down my face. My nails bit into my palms for the second time that day. I needed to get past the foul thing. This was the first step on the long road to bloody vengeance.

My will solidified to iron. I couldn’t turn back now. I needed to prove I was worth the training I so desperately needed. I turned back to the cavern entrance.

I couldn’t take it head-on, so I needed to get creative. If I couldn’t overpower it or outmaneuver it, I had to out-think it. I scanned the interior until my eyes landed on a massive stalactite with a wide crack at its base. It didn’t take much to piece together a plan.

I pulled my bow and an arrow and quietly backpedaled down the path. I had the thought of trying to bring down the stone with a single arrow, but I was not about to gamble my squishy insides on that. It was time to put my talents to good use. I pulled off my backpack and began digging through it. I set aside my tool kit, a camp stove, an electric lantern, a mechanical cooking timer, duct tape, adhesive glue, and a spool of nano-fiber utility cord. I clicked on the penlight Thallos had given me and held it between my teeth as I dug.

I stripped and broke down each of the tools to their base components. With the penlight still in my jaws, I set about dismantling and combining four arrows. The theory was rushed, and the work was going to be a slipshod jerry-rig, but it was the best idea I had. I removed the broadheads from three arrows and shaved off two of the three fletchings of each, keeping the shaved fletchings whole. I ran a bead of glue along the bare side of the three nude arrows and taped them to the fourth, which remained whole. The cobbled-together madness was set in a Y shape. I then glued the shaved fletchings to the outer arrows to elongate them.

Once that was complete, after half an hour, I turned to my other dismantled gear. I partly reassembled the timer, using only the dial, mainspring, and balance wheel with a portion of the frame. I picked up the power supplies for the stove and lantern. The stove had three shard-sized Fire Myst Crystals; the lantern had four fragment-sized Lightning Myst Crystals.

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I attached the Fire Crystals to one side of the goliath arrow and the Lightning Crystals to the other. Then, with copper wire and the timer, I designed the whole thing to go off with a bang when it hit something.

Now for the straightforward part. I picked up another stone and tossed it as I had the last, watching it sail to the target location. As it neared the floor, I notched my morbid excuse for an arrow and took aim.

Now, my bow was no flimsy thing. It was a Triple Stance Recurve Bow made of treated steel with a four-wheel pulley system and a draw strength of one hundred pounds. Father spent six mythril to get it for me. This bow was hard for an untrained adult to pull, but Father had me draw it daily. I kept up the training even after he died. Go figure, arms and legs like twigs, but I had the back of some demigod.

The abomination of an arrow was too heavy to hold normally, so I was forced to draw and aim it horizontally, bracing the shaft against the bow.

I drew the arrow and aimed as the spider jumped. I gauged the distance and angle. As the necrotic arachnid landed, I loosed the arrow. It struck just below the crack, head-on. I gave a silent cheer, but the arrow didn’t detonate. It struck the stone with a loud clack. As the device began to plummet, a curse slipped from my lips.

My words must have carried because the vile thing turned toward me, its milky, sightless eyes seeming to stare right at me. In a panic, I fell onto my back, trying to notch and loose another arrow. The rushed shot flew wide, and the reckless action caused my bowstring to snap. I watched in horror as the spider wound up for a leap. My modified arrow plummeted point-first to land against the spider’s back as it lunged and detonated with a thunderous CRACK! A flash of light rendered me blind. I clambered backward, terrified the creature was about to land on me. But nothing happened.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw something that drew from me both terror and joy. The arrow had devastated the arachnid’s left side. Its legs were either thrown to the floor a dozen feet away or missing entirely. It lay in a gruesome heap not five feet from where it had jumped, black-brown goo rolling out its side. I slowly crawled to my feet, not daring to take my eyes off the still-thrashing creature. It kept trying to stand, as if not comprehending it had lost half its body.

I began to inch forward when I heard the sound of cracking stone. There was a massive snap and a blur of motion before an earth-shattering crash and an unnaturally high screech of agony. Dust filled the air, and clumps of gore flew everywhere. The stench of rot permeated the air so thick I repeatedly gagged.

When the dust cleared, I found the explosion had jarred the stalactite free, and it fell to land on the spider’s abdomen. Its back end was crushed to paste. Yet the thing still wasn’t dead. Its remaining legs still scrambled across the ground. Its fangs flexed, and its mandibles writhed.

I looked away in horror and disgust. The creature wasn’t dead, and I was fairly sure it couldn’t feel pain, but the sight still turned my guts. I shouldered my bow after tying the two ends of the bowstring together and drew my hunting knife, silently wishing for a gun. But I was out of luck. I inched closer to the fraction of a corpse, holding the blade point-down. Its milky eyes stared at me with... Was that sorrow? Despair? Pleading? No, I must have been imagining things. I raised the dagger high, aiming to end its existence. Only I couldn’t. I couldn’t take a life, not even an undead freak like this.

I turned away, sheathed my blade, and fled. I made my way to the minor cliff face and started to climb. I heaved myself hand over hand to the top. At the edge, I pulled myself to the mouth of another cavern path. This one was even narrower and darker. As I pushed on, the tunnel changed, shifting from unhewn stone to carved walls of old granite blocks. After a few yards, the walls started to gather pictographs: warriors, animals, and monsters. The only thing that stood out was the repeating image of a dragon plummeting from the sky with a spear through its chest. After another fifteen minutes, I came to a sudden stop at what looked like an odd wall. The wall had seams around the edges and grind marks as if it were a door that would slide into the floor. The door seemed to be sealed by a five-figure dial lock.

That wall was old, eras old. I looked at the designs. At the center was a handprint, too small to be one of the larger Sophic Species. The first circle showed bones, screaming souls, howling demons, a gaping cave, and a wailing inhuman face. The second showed leafless trees, trees losing their leaves, blossoming trees, fresh trees, and barren stone. The third bore a bear, a wolf, a stag, and a strange six-legged wild cat. The fourth lay an eagle bearing a calf, a raven with a skull, and a speared dragon. Upon the fifth, a storm cloud, a blazing sun, and a crescent moon. Within the final circle stood a leaf, a skull, a soul, a sword crossed over a shield, and six stones in a half-circle.

I looked at this door long and hard, examining each image. Those pictograms had to be for a reason. I turned back and tried to read the story. I pieced all the images together. From the center up, I chose a skeleton in the ground, autumn trees, the strange cat, the storm clouds, and the six gemstones.

Once I was positive I had the right combination, I pressed my palm against the handprint. Nothing happened. I was almost certain I had it right. I scoured the door, looking for any flaw. There was a thin vertical slash in the handprint. I toyed with it, chipped at it, and even tried to slip a copper through it, but nothing worked.

On the verge of turning back, I struck the door with a fist. I felt something crumble. I looked closer at the strange wild cat’s face, which had partly fallen away. I scratched at it to find it was mud. Only then did I notice its face hadn’t matched the feline on the wall. Its eyes and ears were too small. The hollow space held an imprint of an image that looked familiar. The answer came to me when I thought of Thallos and what he gave me: an enamel pin in the design of a grimmalk. I pulled the pin from my shirt and tested it in the niche to find it a snug fit.

Nothing happened when I tried the handprint again. I turned back to the slash. Deep in thought, I eyed the notch. I pulled the pin and tried to use its point to trip some mechanism. In the effort, I felt a sting. I winced and drew back. The pin had slashed open my index finger, but I hadn’t touched the needle tip. Bringing it close, I inspected the fastening end. The bracing needle was bladed on its top and bottom sides.

Who blades a pin? Then it came to me. That pin was a key in more than one form. I took another look at the handprint, focusing on the claw marks. Sure enough, in each divot, there was a small hole for fluid collection. No doubt the slash on the palm was the same. I would not like what came next. But I had nearly been eaten by a necrotized arachnid. I would not let some minor self-mutilation get between me and my future.

I took a deep breath and stabbed my thumb. I gave another hiss of pain, stabbing hard enough to reach the bone. I moved to my middle finger, then the next, and the next. Next came the worst part. I ground my teeth, looked away, and stabbed into my palm and pulled down. I felt flesh tear and gave a snarl before forcing my hand against the handprint. My hand was smaller than the print, so I thrust my fingertips into each claw print and pressed hard. When I felt the door shudder, I slapped my palm against the center and ground my hand against the stone. The door gave an even greater shudder before retracting into the ground, revealing a continued passage that ended with a gleaming door of sunlight.