Mortal gods, p.49
Mortal Gods, page 49
“Very close, very close!” He said, stifling his grin. “Tell me something, what was this place like before the walls came down?”
Vaseyl was still weary of the boy, but he felt himself soften.
“It was the character of the Mountain.” Vaseyl answered. “There will still be much to see when we clear the collapsed corridors. The great halls were left intact, only the corridor which connected them to the central hub were brought down.” Vaseyl still remembered the day that the corridors came down like it was yesterday. He had escaped Lazaroths Hall because of the sacrifice of Arlaw the Mighty, but when he made it back to the central hub of the Mountain, life changed forever.
“The walls must come down!” A much younger Lord Viktor Wyrm had boomed in the packed Assembly Hall.
Vaseyl could remember standing in the Royal Box, the first time he had done this, and watched on as Chieftain Virsa pleaded with the Chamber to vote in favour of sending in the Warriors to put down the threat. That was something that Vaseyl had hoped not happen, although he never spoke it. It was always a curious thing for Vaseyl. When Mirav had recanted this moment, he never spoke of his father’s desire to send in the Warriors. Perhaps it was that he shared Vaseyl’s thoughts on the matter at the time, but Vaseyl never thought it prudent to correct him. If it had been decreed by the Chieftain that he and his brothers were to march back into the abyss and fight the daemon threat which spewed forth from the Arc, then that was what they would do. But as history dictated, the Assembly voted the walls to come down, but if that was where the story ended, Vaseyl would have only bore half the scars he did in this day.
“My father spoke about this place as though it was the Heavens itself. The art, the culture and history of our people. It’s hard to comprehend we just abandoned it.” Roderick said.
“We abandoned the past so we could have a future.” Vaseyl answered. “We made the right choice.”
“The walls were brought down by the sulphuric deposits.” Roderick said, more in statement than question.
“They were. The Warriors were sent back into the Western Corridors with torches and fire jars. In truth, more burned to death than anything else.” Vaseyl relived the moment in his head briefly, but it did not sting any less now than it had then. “The deposits were deep rooted inside the walls, but when they were dug out, they were volatile to the flame.”
In that moment he remembered a friend who he had long forgotten. His face was a mixture of the bright green of inexperience, and the harsh and brutal decay of melted skin. Totalov Wyse, or Toto as Vaseyl had known him, was a young Warrior who had barely had his day battle. Vaseyl always remembered his violet eyes which popped from his head and the mop of blond tangles that fell to his shoulders. He was in the first team to test the volatility of the deposits and when the first sulphuric deposit went up, the explosion was catastrophic. It ripped through the walls like a snake and slithered directions not anticipated, and swallowed the whole team. There was that split second before the walls came down, Vaseyl seen the young Dwarves face from afar. It was gut wrenching, heart breaking almost. There was a vacant look of terror and confusion, but then nothing. Toto’s face melted from his skull and that innocent, inexperience was lost.
“You were with those Warriors were you not?” Roderick said.
“I was, but I was wounded in my first travel back east, so I was merely to point the direction.”
“Vaseyl.” Kyler called from the front of the column. Roderick followed as Vaseyl rounded the others and came to a stop at Kylers shoulder. They came to a former fork in the corridors, where one was clear and the other was still partially blocked by rubble. It was much the same as the corridors at the cusp of the western way. The stone was unset and seemed to hold itself in place unnaturally.
“He knew what he was looking for.” Vaseyl said.
“What’d ye mean?” One of the Ranch twins asked.
“The Arc is this way.” He answered.
“Lazaroths Hall?” Kyler added.
“There are ghosts in that hall that I would’ve hoped not to see in this life again.” Vasely said, aimlessly. They pressed through, and after another ten minutes they entered a large hall, that for the most part was untouched. In the corners stood four great pillars that shouldered the weight of the mountain above. But on their face was scripture written in ancient Dwaven. There was scarcely a Dwarf left in the Steel Mountains who could speak or read the ancient dialect, with the last known one to have recently met the Black King’s blade. The House of Gando had made sure to keep the ancient dialect alive, but whether Mirav had passed on to Milan, there was no way to tell until he woke up.
“What’s it say?” Jora Gort asked. There were blank faces all round, with the Ranch twins studying the words intently as though the pillars would somehow read it to them. But as the group gazed over the foreign scripture, Vaseyl wandered towards the far side to the hall, past the crumbling statue of a long forgotten Chieftain in stone. There were bodies, Dwarven bodies splashed around. It was the steel plate and mail of the Dwarven Warrior that had first drawn him in, but as he walked closer, his pace quickened, but then died. It was as though he had seen a ghost from his nightmares. It crawled out of the darkened corners of his consciousness and died once again in these damnable corridors. Vaseyl moved closer, his eyes locked, and his heart bleeding.
“Toto…” He said sadly. Knelt beside the body of a small Dwarf, Vaseyl reached for a small charred pendant that hung around the dead Dwaves neck.
“You know him?” Roderick said, approaching from behind. Vaseyl felt the lump in his throat as the memories of the little Dwarf flooded back. He didn’t even want to comprehend what evils had pulled him from the rubble of the corridor which collapsed upon him. It was almost in an instant that he remembered a thousand and one things that he had long forgotten. He remembered his voice. Low and sweet, too sweet for a Warrior, he had once thought. The way he had gripped his axe, and how Vaseyl had corrected it. He studied Toto further, trying to remember his face more clearly, but as he did, something else fell into focus. He got to his feet and looked to the other bodies that lay idly, noticing the same thing he did on Toto.
“Kyler!” He called to the healer who ran to his side immediately. “Tell me what’s wrong with these bodies.”
“Gods…” Kyler said, seeing what Vaseyl had seen.
“What?” Roderick said. By now the others had grown bored of the scripture and now scattered around the hall in exploration.
“You see it?” Vaseyl said.
“I do.” Kyler replied. He placed a gentle hand on the face of Toto and then the other bodies.
“See what?” Roderick said.
“It’s been thirty years.” Kyler said.
“So?”
“These bodies are still in the midst of decomposition.” He followed up. Roderick took a closer look at Toto and understood.
“They should be bones by now?” He said, unsure of his assessment.
“They should be bones.” Vaseyl said. “This is bad.”
“How bad?” Kizra asked, joining the trio.
“Bad enough that we should start back now and brings these walls down again.” Vaseyl said.
“No!” Roderick, Igor and Sybald said in harmony. That was curious to Vaseyl. He expected their opposition, but with such a harmonic resonance it, it was given another shade.
“Where’s your heart old timer!” Igor goaded him. It stung Vaseyl’s pride to be accused of being yellow, but this place was something that demanded pride be left by the entrance.
“You don’t understand! None of you do!” He scolded. “Look at these bodies,” He pointed Toto’s face, “he’s almost fresh!” Their faces were blank, so Vaseyl looked to Kyler for help.
“When we lay our dead to rest, depending on the wood used to shelter the body, it could take thirty, forty years to become nothing but bone. But down here, in the open air, bare to insects and gods know what else, these bodies should have been bone within the year.”
“Whatever was in them, has kept them whole?” Roderick said, looking the Vaseyl to confirm his theory.
“Or it never left.” The old Dwarf answered. The group felt his words and backed away from the bodies, each of them with a tight grip on their weapons now.
“Looks like the old yin has lost his nerve!” Jora snorted. The others except Kyler, Roderick and Kirza joined in the laughter.
“Enough!” Roderick snapped. “I may not have been here with Vaseyl when these things happened, but I know the stories. Have respect!”
Vaseyl eyed the young flame haired dwarf with suspicion. Every time he edged towards disproving the old Dwarves preconceived notion of him, every time he almost proved himself a good Dwarf, Vasely reminded himself that Roderick was a Wyrm.
“Wait…” Kirza said, stepping towards the body. “If whatever made them rise was still in them, why didn’t they come for us during the Daemon War?”
“The corridors were still down and sealed by the Elemento.” Vaseyl said, but he realised his folly. Not everyone knew that the Elemento had lend aid, and by the looks on a few of the faces, these were among them.
“Spread out, pick what you can and bundle the sacks by the entrance.” Vaseyl said, turning back to Toto. The rest of the group moved around the great hall snapping up trinkets of gold and silver. There were platters, goblets, photo frames with elaborate oil paintings and candle stick holders of pure silver. But what excited some of them most was the ceremonial weapons. Throwing axes, hand axes and great axes were the norm for a Dwarf, but these weapons where from outside the Mountain. A curved blade, that Men called a sickle, attached to a long wooden hilt, was claimed by Igor Ranch. A small dirk had been snapped up and placed into Jora’s belt, but it was Roderick who had seen a pair of iron knuckles, empowered by spikes of crude sharpness and tucked them into the pocket beneath his black iron mail.
Vaseyl took nothing. He had yet to pull himself away from Toto, staring deeply at the pendant that he had pulled from the young Dwarf’s neck. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was but he knew it had meaning to Toto, once.
“You knew him well?” Kyler asked, approaching from behind.
“He should never have been down here.” Vaseyl replied. “He was so green, full of optimism and dreams of honour and glory. He was too young.”
“Who sent him?” Kyler asked.
Vaseyl laughed gently, remembering the persistence of the little Dwarf. “He asked until Visra’s ears were fit to bleed!”
When the hall had been picked clean, the sacks were stacked by the gaping wound of stone they entered through, to be picked up when the group made their way back to the central hub. There were four exits to the great hall, but only one held any interest for them. It stood wide and yawning, on the right side of the hall, between the two great pillars of ancient scripture. The group fell back into their two by two formations, only this time, Jora and Sneker had separated. Vaseyl was unclear on what had actually happened, but Roderick had enlightened him to the squabble the pair had over the pronunciation of the ancient Dwarven word “Maraghet”. Jora Gort had insisted the “t” at the end was silent, but Sneker Gort protested it wasn’t. In truth, it was hard to place whether or not Sneker knew what a silent “t” was, or he just enjoyed riling his brother, but the result ended in the pair walking ten feet apart, one in front of the other. Although Vaseyl did not know the ancient dialect, he did know this particular word. Had he lived another hundred years, he would not forget it.
“Jora has the way of it.” Vaseyl had said quietly to Roderick, so as the battling brothers weren’t to hear.
“You know it?” Roderick answered.
“It means mighty.” Vaseyl reminisced. “Arlaw taught me a word here and there.”
The smell of the sulphur grew stronger the deeper into the western corridors the group drew. It was subtle at first, only Vaseyl really picking up its familiar scent, but eventually the rest of the group voiced their complaints. After some thirty years, the gas that was expelled when the sulphur was ignited, just barely clung in the air. But it was still enough to notice.
The winding corridor ended in the frame of a broken door and the confused rubble of another collapse further along the way. Each and every time the rubble barred a different path, Vaseyl grew more and more tense. They were being led to Lazaroths Hall. Kyler and Kirza pushed through the broken door frame first, ducking under a wooden beam that had taken exception to being opened. On the other side, Kirza gasped and laced the air in profanity. Jora and Sneker rushed towards the door almost as one despite their distance, each bashing through. Bartley and Evra rushed in one ahead of the other, with steel drawn.
But Vaseyl barely cracked a light. He knew the room they had entered, he knew the reactions that were expected. When the other four crossed the threshold, the gasps was replaced by whooping cheers and more profanity, mostly from the Gort brothers.
“Age before beauty.” Roderick said, with a wry grin on his face. He was flanked by the Ranch twins. For all the commotion that had taken place on the other side of the door, Igor and Sybald barely moved a muscle from Roderick’s side. Vaseyl stepped through the broken doorway onto a balcony that had shattered over its right side and dropped to the floor.
“It’s just like the Chamber of the Speaker.” Kirza said.
“It’s a little known fact that our ancestors used the same designs, over and over again for each part of the mountain.” Kyler replied.
“Fuck what it looks like, look at all that gold!” Jora said, almost salivating. Vaseyl wandered to the forefront of the balcony and peered out. But it wasn’t the mounds of gold and silver that he saw, or the goblets of jewels. It was the memories. The ghosts of memories even.
“So…?” Roderick said, beckoning towards the mounts of gold.
“When the Arc was discovered as more than decorative stone, Chieftain Visra ordered the Warriors to retrieve everything of value within the Western Corridors and bring it here. The plan was to evacuate it all should something go awry.”
“How did we not know about this?” Roderick asked, gazing out in wonder.
“Almost every Warrior who took part, died.” Vaseyl said vacantly. “Chieftain Visra thought it best not to tell the other Lords of what lay here for fear they would try to open the corridors again.”
“He didn’t even want to collapse them in the first place. How could he abandon this?” Roderick replied.
“I told him to.” Vaseyl answered honestly.
“Well it’s still here.” Sneker said, to a chorus of tisks from his mocking brother.
“After the Arc opened… We didn’t feel much like stopping to gather someone else’s fortune.” Vaseyl said.
“Let’s get down there!” Bartley said, racing Kirza to the broken end of the balcony.
“Watch out for the bodies.” Vaseyl called after them. Bartley slowed, and then stopped completely with Kirza weary at his side.
“What bodies?” She asked with a new found caution.
“Twelve made it out of Lazaroths Hall.” Kyler said, and no more was needed.
Jora and Sneker were the first down from the balcony, followed by Kirza and Bartley. When they all touched base, the scavenging began. Only, unlike the hall before this, they could hardly decide where to start. The Gorts went after the weapons, picking through ceremonial blades and axes like over excited children. Kirza and Bartley headed straight for the sacks of gold that propped up against the wall, while Evra meandered around, slowly taking stock. But it was Roderick and the Ranch twins who had peaked Vaseyl’s interest again. Roderick had scarcely left his side, but now he stood in deep consultation with Igor and Sybald, scolding harsh words by the looks on the twin’s faces.
“We could be here some time.” Kyler said, but Vaseyl ignored him. He wandered towards the gallery, where in the Chamber of the Speaker, it would have been packed with Dwarves, but here it was, amass with gold pieces.
“Wyrm was right about one thing, we abandoned a fortune over here.” Kyler said. Vaseyl shot him a glance and Kyler clammed up, knowing. He edged towards the trio, picking up fragments of the conversation. Roderick was angry, cursing the twins with harsh words.
“But, but how we supposed to find it in here?” Igor said, just a little too loudly.
“Find what?” Vaseyl pounced. The young flame haired Dwarf sighed and gave a long, drastic glare at Igor whose eyes had found the floor and dared not move.
“Find what?” Vaseyl repeated. All the feelings he had felt at the onset of this cursed journey flared all at once. “Speak, Roderick!”
“The staff.” Roderick replied.
“And amulet.” Igor said, but his eyes raced to the floor again.
“How do you…?”
“Not really much in this mountain my father doesn’t know.”
“What staff?” Kyler asked.
“The only person to hear of the staff was Chieftain Visra himself!” Vaseyl snapped.
“But the Chieftain wasn’t the only person to know of the Man’s presence in the Mountain that day.” Roderick said.
“What staff? What human?” Kyler repeated, the agitation in his voice drawing the others closer.
“What’s going on?” Kirza asked.
“Why’s there still gold on the ground?!” Jora asked impatiently, blatantly missing the tension in the air.
“Should you explain or I?” Roderick said, calmly.
Vaseyl fizzed, for now he knew why the Basileus’s son had been forced upon him. “The Man was brought into the Mountain to translate the scripture scribed onto the Arc.”
“Who was he?” Kyler asked, eagerly.
“She.” Vaseyl corrected. “She arrived at the Iron Gates on invitation from Chieftain Visra. She went by the name Freya, beyond that, I know little of her.”
“Oh, try again.” Roderick said, but when Vaseyl glared at him with a cold expression he laughed. “The woman was an Elemento. That’s why they helped seal the mountain. To help fix this woman’s mistake!”
There was an audible collection of intake of breathe.
