Chapter Four: It Lives in the Cellars

Keeper of the Shade

Outside the rectory, Derian leaned against a large tree amongst the gravestones and tried to catch his breath. Breaking the bead with one hand had sent large pieces of pottery deep into his flesh, and he shook as he removed the sharp curved earthenware slivers.

He sucked the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, tasting the iron of his blood.He sat below the tree to meditate.

He wished his master was there. The damned lord was right in his assumption. Derian had not been on many challenging cases. The Lord Mountgomary’s case only required him to break a single bead, over a boat that had been buried in an old dried-up lake bed. There had been a fight between two large families. To try and end the dispute, the sons of both families had climbed into the boat, set it afire, and tossed their oars out into the water. They thought their families would stop fighting to save them. But the creek that fed the lake was swollen and fast, and the families could not cross it to reach them. Those that had tried to cross were those that bothered the Lord Mountgomary and his romping guests as they danced nude on their death mounds.

Derian had burnt the remains of the boat, cast grave dust atop it, and instructed the sons to follow the light. The family members had followed the sons up.

Then he collected his silver.

This place was different.

The souls were not tied to an object as far as he could see. They were bound by something darker. Something that decayed the whole village.

The demons complicated things.

And nagging Derian’s gut, was the notion that the demons were not the source of the village’s problem. Demons could not be around one another without falling into battle, or exist around haunts without devouring them. Some greater power was holding sway.

He decided to try and find the bodies of the Wagoneers, the tribesmen, the peasants and the guards who were missing. They were the largest mass missing from the picture.

He went to the fresh grave. He whispered condolences as he rubbed dirt from the top of the mound between his hands. He broke up the large chunks, and a fine pile of dirt was left on the grass. He filled his pocket.

He turned, and saw a figure dart behind a bakery.

Derian stood up, and stretched. He felt the eyes on him again. He put his hand in his pocket of renewed grave dust, and rotated his necklace with the other. He hummed, and walked away from the bakery. He looked up at the facades and stopped to look at a withered flower in a window box. He stood and turned down a street packed in close with houses. The doors were all hanging open, as the first one had been. He stepped into a house, and pressed his back up against the door. He heard footsteps, quiet but losing some of their stealth in hopes to gain ground. When they got close, he stepped out of the house, cast dust into the air, and shouted.

“Follow the light!”

A blonde woman coughed and yelped as the dust clotted in her eyes and mouth. She stumbled backwards and tripped over the uneven road. She was wearing a peasant’s dress with a deerskin jacket. Her shoes were worn through in many places. Derian was on her before she opened her eyes. He held her arms at her side and looked into her face as she struggled to speak out. The white of her eyes had gone completely red. She was smaller than he, and so beautiful, even covered in dust, that it was hard to look at her.

“Who are you?!” Derian asked. He pulled a long thin blade from her hip and tossed it behind him.

The woman spat grave dust.

“None of your concern, child. Get off of me before I scream.”

“There is no one to hear you for leagues,” Derian said. “Name. What you are doing here. Why are you following me? And who are you to call me a child?”

“You are not a monk from our temple. I do not trust someone just because he wears the clothes of the order.”

“I’m been hired by Lord Sayn to investigate this village. I am supposed to be here. You are not.”

“I am not supposed to be in my village?”

She struggled, then kneed Derian between the legs. His grip slackened and she freed an arm. She hit him across the jaw. He saw white. She scrambled away from him, and he shook his head. He felt his jaw as he stood.

“Come any closer and you’ll get another one,” she swore, lifting a fist. Derian stepped between her and the knife on the road.

“The village is supposed to be empty,” Derian said, “explain to me how it is that you are here.”

“You first.”

“I already have. I am known as Derian. I am a monk. I’ve been hired by your lord to investigate the curse that lies over this village. I’m to free the trapped spirits and find out where the people have gone.”

“I do not trust you. But you seem to be sure of your charge. I guess… I guess. If you are lying, then the down shall take you. I am Cathrine, daughter of Smithwick. I run light trade between our village and a village to the north of us, Briarwood. I’ve come back this afternoon with coin for our surplus of grain.”

“How long has it been since you were here?”

“Ten days, perhaps.”

“And everything was normal when you left?”

“There were people here, if that’s what you mean. Drunken guards at the gate. Children chasing cats. Regular caravans from the pass.”

“You travel alone?”

“Do I not seem capable of it?”

“It is a little suspicious.”

“I am capable of much more than a ride to our neighbors. That being said, the path to Briarwood is quite populated and easy to take. I ride a stout mountain pony, makes the ride in two days.”

“Where is your pony?”

“Tied up to a tree in the wood. She would not come near the gate.”

Derian scratched the back of his shaven head.

“So, you don’t know what happened?” Cathrine asked. “I looked for my father and mother, but our house was empty.”

“I have a few ideas,” Derian said. “I apologize that your family is missing. I’ll do my best to find them.”

“What have you done worth apologizing for? Unless you have not done what you should have been doing.”

“No, that’s not it. I’m doing what must be done.” Derian adjusted his necklace. “It may be best for you to leave this place for a while. No doubt word will spread when the curse is lifted.”

“I am not leaving this town to some unknown monk,” the woman said. “I’ve heard of plunderers dressing up like monks to steal trinkets off the dead.”

“That is a rumor, and nothing more.”

“Yet here we are.”

“I cannot make you leave, but I cannot assure your safety if you stay.”

“How thoughtful.”

“There are dark things about, miss. Things that your blade cannot cut.”

“And you think you are equipped to deal with such things?”

“My order is trained in handling haunts and spirits. If I could not deal with them, then I would not have been assigned to come here.”

“You’re quite confident for a little guy.”

“Not every part of me is little.”

Cathrine laughed, showing her crooked teeth to the noon sun. “You are dirty, monk.”

Derian shifted his feet. He wished he could call back his words. She was like a flower growing on a field of rock, soft and golden and decently featured. When she was under him on the road, coughing up grave dust, he felt a ping in his heart and heat rise to his face and fingers. Yet she could not be for him. He was going to be assigned to marry a widow of the faith, as all monks were. His master was already looking at a few lonely women whose men died in the last war with the eastern empire. His longing was that of an empty wish. It was childish and he hated that his body had reacted so.

“I can search with you,” she said. “I know this village better than you and I know where people would go to hide.”

“I cannot ask that of you.”

“Do not. I am declaring it. Unless you are frightened of me.”

“Worse things are going on than you could imagine,” Derian said. When her stare did not break, he sighed, picked up her knife, and held the handle out towards her.

#

Cathrine led Derian through an alley. They had to walk sideways to make it through. They ended up in a small courtyard surrounded by homes. In the center was an archway of megalithic stones. A large wooden board was placed beneath the arch. Cathrine lifted the board, and it crumbled to dust in her hands. A stairway beyond the arc dropped steeply down into the land. A frozen wind blew out of the opening.

“What is it?”

“It’s a skija,” Cathrine said, “a place where the old dead rest.”

“A tomb.”

“It was here before the village was built. Kids that play in it are scolded. Some say that they can hear voices coming from its halls. Before the lord posted the guards here, we’d hide in it when the mountain tribesmen came. They wouldn’t come near it. We also use it when the spring and autumn storms hit like monsters. There was a fire a few years ago, and it kept us all safe. The air that flows through it is clean and uncorrupted. Though nobody has ever made it to the bottom.”

Derian walked up and felt the stone. His hand felt the inside of the arch, the motion instinctive, as if he had walked into a rectory or temple. He was surprised to find words carved. It was in the old language, pre-empire, and likely pre-the time before that. The sharp angles of the characters were vaguely related to those that he had studied. It is something the scribes would foam after, he thought.

They were shallow, worn from hundreds of years of passing wind and rain.

“Here… lies…” Derian frowned. He couldn’t make out the middle section. “…keeper of the shade.”

“Huh?” Cathrine asked. She felt the stone after he pulled his hand free. She could feel nothing but flat stone.

“This is where they would go?”

“This is where I would go,” she said. “The only other place to hide is the mountains. But the tribes are feared worse than death.”

“Then let us descend,” Derian said. He looked at the stone and thought of breaking a bead over it. But it was so old that he was worried. Usually, the sight came and went faster than a blink. But on something as old as the stones, he might find himself experiencing time from the birth of the world. It would take a while to come back to his body. And he did not trust Cathrine enough to leave his body in her care.

He extended an arm. She huffed, walked past him, and began to climb down.

The stairs were dark. But the walls were smooth and the steps ran true. They did not deviate.

Derian felt lonely after a while. His steps and the steps of Cathrine synced together. He stopped to listen to her tread, and frowned when no sound returned.

“Cathrine?” he whispered. The darkness was both intimate and vast. He could have been in a room the size of the world, or small as a closet.

There was no answer.

“Deceiving little,” he bit his tongue. He did not know if she had gotten ahead of him or had fallen behind in his haste.

“Cathrine?!” he yelled. There was no answer. He looked behind him, and could not see the speck of light from the day. He continued down, folding his hands together and meditating as he walked.

He wished that his master was here with him. Or anyone at all.

He stepped, and nearly tripped. The step was shorter than it should have been. He stuck out his arms. He shuffled to the side. There was no wall beside him. He went back up a step, and reached out again. He found the wall. He found a corner, the wall breaking as the steps descended. He felt the square faces of brick, and traced the arch they formed. He kept a hand on the wall as he stepped onto the different step. He imagined an endless pit in front of him.

He edged sideways on the long step, gripping his robe in his right hand and keeping touch with the wall through his left.

He heard voices on the wind that rushed past his face. He walked until they were louder. He took a handful of grave dust from his pocket, and threw it out in front of him.

“Follow the light!”

Where the dust hit the spirits, it shimmered. It gave enough light that he could see the room he was in. It was a great circle, and he had been walking around it. He could not see the entry by which he had come. In the center of the circle, below the domed ceiling, was a statue of a man standing on top of something.

There were more than twenty spirits in the chamber, dressed in large robes and cloaks, with haunt-silver chains draping off their shoulders. A few of the figures looked up and vanished. More than ten were left. They wore small masks that covered their eyes and their noses. Each mask was different, and they each resembled some different kind of animal. They turned from their conversation to look at him.

“Who calls the light to this place?” a woman wearing the mask of a cat asked.

“Monk Derian.”

“Monk, you should not be here,” a man wearing the mask of a desert bird, answered.

“This is not a place for your order,” another said, wearing the mask of a lizard’s face.

“Your stars do not shine in the down,” the cat woman said.

“This is not the down,” Derian said. “It is a room off the side of an old stairway.”

“Stupid monk,” the cat woman said. “You think the down is not a part of your world? Where else would it be, but in a room, off of an old stairway?”

“You speak strangely, woman. What are you doing here?”

“It is not I who sounds strange, but you,” she said. “We are awaiting the master’s return, if you must know.” She pointed towards the statue.
Derian approached the middle of the room. It was not a statue of a man, but of armor. It was empty. He was standing on another man, dressed in robes like his own.

“There is no man beneath the armor,” Derian said.

“What?!” the woman shrieked.

“The armor is empty.”

“Blasphemy!” the man wearing the desert bird’s beak squawked.

“Look for yourselves.”

“It can’t be,” the woman said. The remaining souls swarmed towards Derian. He sneezed as a woman in a cow mask passed through him. As they looked at the empty armor, their figures began to fade. Their faces glowed as they smiled. All that was left was the cat woman and the monk.

“Why do you not look upon your statue?” Derian asked.

“Because the Keeper of the Shade was supposed to return to us upon his summoning,” the woman said. “I cannot imagine that he would return but not keep his promise to us.”

“The others have already left. Passed on. You can be at ease, darling, if you look upon the empty armor.”

“Do not call me darling, child. I have been dead for a hundred lifetimes.” She closed her eyes and clenched her fist.

“The man you worship, is he an honest man?”

“The master is not a man, stupid monk. He is greater than any being.”

“Is he honest?”

“He is honest about the shade.”

“The shade?”

“His place. His duty.”

“I have not heard of this shade master.”

“He is known by many other names. The light bringer. The death guide. He who waits between the up and the down.”

“You speak of the lesser god Shamath.”

“He is not lesser!” the woman screamed. “He is the one who holds the worlds in balance! He has more power than any other. He knows the devils and the gods, decides the post-fate of all men.”

“None is more powerful than Asgar,” Derian said, “King of gods.”

“Asgar is an old beaten dog! He does nothing but sit in the up, drinking honeyed nectar! There is no hope for those who worship Asgar. He has grown fat and lazy.”

The blasphemy made Derian’s head swim. He had some experience with cults of the lesser gods, and cults of the devils. A few members of every temple’s staff had affiliation with one more than the others. His own order was closely tied to the goddess Damish… but to renounce the power of Asgar?

“You are misguided,” Derian said. He rubbed the silt of grave dirt between his fingers. “Perhaps if you pass, you’ll meet your destined.”

The woman shook her head. She sat and leaned against the statue, facing away from the monk. Derian looked up at the empty suit of armor. He reached out and touched it. He was surprised to find it was true metal, only covered in a slick of rock dust.

“When was the last time you looked in the armor?”

“Decades, perhaps. Time here moves differently. There is no moon or sun to give you a count.”

“Where is the door?”

“There is no door, monk.”

“Then how did I get in?”

“How do any of us get into the down?” the ghost smiled. She seemed to see something beyond Derian’s shoulder. He turned to look.

“Damn god!” she screamed. Derian jumped as she brought her fist down and shattered a corner of the statue’s pedestal.

The feeling of a hundred needles crawled down the monk’s back. A second level spirit.

“Did you see him?”

“I felt his essence,” she hissed. “He’s near.”

“Impossible,” Derian shook his head.

“Not impossible! You’re impossible!”

“I grow tired of your talk,” Derian said. He stood on the broken pedestal, reached up, and removed the helmet from the statue. It fit snuggly over his bald head.

“What are you doing?”

“My head was cold, deary. Awful damp in this place.”

“Put that back!”

“I’ll return it when I see the shade master.”

“You!” she pointed. Her finger grew and twisted. Derian took the gauntlet from the statue, and fit it over his wrist.

“Why don’t you follow the light?” Derian said, “I give you permission to leave.”

“I am tied by more than your words, little boy!” she shrieked. The twisting and lengthening of her fingers traveled down her hand, down her arm, and into her neck and torso. She became withered and taut, sinewy and scarred. Her face twisted around her mask, rolling into itself, until there was nothing but oblong taunt skin and a mouth on the side of her face.

“Reveal yourself, demon!” Derian said, standing and flourishing the skirt of his robes. He reached into the pocket opposite of the grave dust, and threw the sun-browned salt of the desert across her.

Flecks hit her haunted skin and she screamed out of her sideways mouth. In the maw Derian saw her mask crumpled and a long and rootlike tongue. Her body went in and out of translucency as bright sparks rained down from the spots where the desert salt had struck.

“You have no place in this hall!” the woman’s voice became deep and poisonous. “That is armor for holy Shamath!”

“If you are tied to an object as flimsy as these plates, then you will not be here long!” Derian shouted. He reached up to the statue and pulled off a leg brace. He stepped into it and quickly began to fasten the laces. She came at him like a sideways tornado. Her spiked and twisted head hit him in the gut and sent him flying into the opposite wall. He smacked against it, and the wind was driven from his stomach. The helmet pinged against the wall.

“You defile the holy armor.”

Derian took more salt and broadcast it out in front of him. It reached the statue and drew a line between him and the she-demon. He ran over its path as the she demon fled around the back side of the statue.

He heaved off the chest plate, and had it over his head when she hit him square in the back.

He was thrown into the air, and the monk scrambled to pull it over his stomach as he fell. She kicked him with one of the long turning rootlike legs, and he bounced across the floor, streaking through the line of salt. She approached him and her hand turned into a large spike.

“Follow the light, demon!” he called out.

A rumbling came from the wall. The she-demon stopped to look.

“He’s here,” she smiled. The figure shook as the form unraveled. Her face unfolded from her mouth, her neck rolled as the grotesque became long and regal. Derian ran to the statue as the face of a rock that made up part of the wall began to crack. He placed the other gauntlet, and then the leg piece. He strapped them down, and lifted his hands above his head.

“I give you new life!” he called out, “shalook shala!” He lifted a bead on his necklace, held it over his head, and clapped the earthenware to pieces. Dust and oil filled his mouth and eyes. It ran over the pieces of armor and onto the stone floor below. The metal grew hot and shimmered. He had cleansed the armor of the bonds tied to it. The she-demon turned. Her eyes were wide and her twisted hands shook as she reached out for him.

“No,” she screamed, “he is here! Let me see him!”

She vanished.

The rock wall’s crack ran to the ceiling, and a section as tall as a grain silo fell to the cavern floor with a boom.