Chapter 54. Denial

  The heavy dark stone building sat silent, untouched by the death and chaos surrounding it. Jeremiah selected an escort of three skeletons to accompany him. He had yet to see any sign of Lyle, and if the man was still anywhere in the city, he’d be here.

  The stone door awaited him, as before. Jeremiah withdrew his enchanting tools as he reached it and etched the missing lines into the stone with a few quick strokes. Adjusting for the circular indentation in the surface was hardly a challenge after working with the challenging geometry of gloves, armor, and weapons. With a quick charge of the diagram, the doors yielded to admit him.

  Jeremiah started through, then reconsidered. His escort stood sentinel as a group of skeletons chased down some cult members down the street. The air filled with their screams as the skeletons overtook them.

  Strengthen, If Strengthen, Strengthen

  The runes fit easily alongside the locking diagram on the stone door. He charged them, walked through, and threw the doors shut behind him. They exploded, stone shards flowing like rain down the stairs.

  “Lyle!” shouted Jeremiah as he strode inside. “Get out here and take what’s coming to you!”

  But all that greeted him when he entered that circular room with the polished metal floor was that wrong-space of the Abyss, suspended in the center of the room, invisible yet as real as the hard adamantine beneath his feet. Its presence and its approval filled Jeremiah’s mind for a moment, threatening to overwhelm him.

  “Conquer, slay, lay waste,” said the Abyss. “You are beautiful in your fury.”

  Jeremiah gritted his teeth and tried to close his mind to its influence. “I’ll deal with you soon.” He turned his attention instead to the three doors set around the perimeter of the room.

  Leaving one skeleton in the main chamber to alert him if Lyle attempted to escape, Jeremiah tried the first door. He was not at all surprised to discover that it led to a torture chamber. Barbed instruments of torment adorned the walls, and a brazier of coals containing pokers and brands still glowed with heat.

  At the center of the room, the remains of the most recent victim were still lashed to a large wooden rack. It was a half-elven girl, drawn and quartered, face still twisted in agony. Her skin bore evidence of the pain she’d endured in her last hours, puckered burns and lacerations still oozing fluids. She was very fresh.

  Jeremiah wondered what he’d been doing when she’d died. Sitting around, feeling sorry for himself? Focusing on the mission so he wouldn’t have to think about coming back to this place?

  His disgust at himself flared, then receded. He didn’t commit this atrocity. Her fate wasn’t his fault. Walking away from the cult, doing nothing and allowing things to continue—that would have been a failure.

  Jeremiah released the manacles that still held the girl’s wrists and ankles and arranged her limbs in place beside her torso. He rested his hands gently against her marred skin and cast his new spell again. The body melded back together, once again whole.

  Rise. Follow.

  He would have use for her later.

  There was still no sign of Lyle, so Jeremiah continued onto the second door. This one featured a lock so basic even Jeremiah could pick it in a matter of minutes—clearly Lyle had relied on the stone outer doors for security.

  With a click, the door gave way to reveal a treasure vault. Tiny chests were neatly arranged along shelves around the room, and a larger chest sat in the center of the floor. Jeremiah opened several of the smaller chests to find piles of silver and copper coins, with a few odd gold thrown in.

  The larger chest held the true treasure. Jeremiah heaved the lid open to discover gold and platinum trade bars, rolls of gold coins, tiny boxes containing gemstones and, sitting at the center of the chest, a familiar wicked-looking crown.

  Jeremiah withdrew the crown to inspect. Spears of gold reached upward, large gemstones twinkled in the torchlight. He had seen this crown once before, upon the head of Empress Aubrianna. In his hands was either the genuine item or a perfect copy of it. Lacking Bruno’s expertise in appraising jewels, he couldn’t be certain which he held, but he had a hard time imagining Lyle locking up a fake.

  He summoned a handful of zombies from outside to raid the treasury, stacking the smaller chests to be carried together and ordering two zombies to transport the larger chest between them. When he was ready, they would help him bring the riches to the surface.

  That left only one more room, and the last possibility of finding Lyle. Jeremiah gripped his spear as he turned the knob, prepared to thrust it into the other man’s chest should the opportunity arise. His skeletons waited, similarly poised.

  He steeled himself and threw the door open with a shout, rushing into the room. But Lyle was not there. Jeremiah lowered the weapon to take in his surroundings.

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  These were Lyle’s personal quarters, without a doubt. The room was small but lavishly adorned, velvet tapestries and soft linens offsetting the austere stone architecture. It was a space that spoke of homeyness.

  Jeremiah confirmed that Lyle was not hiding anywhere in the room before turning his attention to the contents of the space. A corner bookshelf was stuffed full to bursting with arcane tomes, histories of Elminia and her noble families, and books on demonology. A worn, overstuffed chair suggested the countless evenings Lyle may have spent poring over the books.

  Something about the bookshelf caught Jeremiah’s eye. There, the light dust that coated the books was missing in one spot, an area frequently disturbed. Jeremiah reached between Heraldries Through the Ages and Summoning Vol 1: Souls and Spirits. He half expected to find a trigger for a secret staircase, but instead he withdrew a tiny black leather-bound journal.

  Jeremiah flipped open the journal. It was handwritten in a text Jeremiah couldn’t decipher, long passages written in either an unknown language or code. He did recognize enchantment runes, however, diagram designs with inscrutable notes written in the margins. Jeremiah tucked the notebook away to peruse later.

  He returned to the main chamber. Lyle may have escaped, but there was still a critical task before him. The skeletons’ feet clattered across the adamantine floor as Jeremiah swept through to grab one of the specialized tools from the wall. It was a simple inscription knife made of the same black metal, designed for intricate work. He recognized a small strengthening rune on the blade.

  Jeremiah knew he had to inscribe close to the center, as close as he could bear to the wrong-space. As he approached, the whispers of Abyssal power became manifest, a voice speaking directly into his mind.

  “Jeremiah Thorn. Necromancer. A slave in all but name. We can see the mountain of chains that burden you. Poor Jeremiah, poor scared Jeremiah. So scared, so strong. We have such sights to show you.”

  The whisper carried with it promises of boundless freedom and power. And happiness.

  Jeremiah stopped in his tracks, stymied by the wave of wholesome indulgence it imparted on his psyche.

  “ It’s boundless, Jeremiah Thorn. The wretches use their freedom for acts of greed and wickedness. But within the infinite expanses of the Abyss, peace and tranquility can be found. Everything can be found.”

  “It’s…it’s all in there?” asked Jeremiah. He didn’t even know what it was, only that it was anything and everything he’d ever wanted. His hand drifted towards the wrong-space, moving of its own accord.

  “It is, Jeremiah Thorn. You need only enter the rift. We will find it together. Everything you want, everything you ever will want. Everything forever.”

  Jeremiah’s fingers brushed it, the wrong-space, and the call became overwhelming. It was the satisfaction of every desire, it was assurance, it was affirmation of everything he’d ever wanted to believe about himself. His eyes fell closed as he basked in its glory. He needed this. He deserved it.

  Something thumped, hard, against his chest. He heard an angry croak. A tiny bastion of thought cloistered somewhere deep in his mind spoke up.

  Jeremiah withdrew his hand. “I want to destroy you.”

  “Thy will be done,” said the Abyss.

  Jeremiah dropped to his knees and scratched at the adamantine floor. The entire surface was already covered in runes, and Jeremiah had to move the knife in deft, sure strokes to create his tiny additions, linking them through the lines of the existing diagram.

  It wasn’t enough to simply mar the surface, that much could be undone. He had to destroy it entirely.

  Strengthen. If Strengthen, Strengthen

  He etched the runes just prior to the terminal components near the rift. Jeremiah charged it, making it a part of the diagram. The same unconceivable power that was maintaining the wrong-space now flowed through his runes as well.

  Jeremiah faced the wrong-space and raised his spear overhead. The Abyss sang to him, praised him, welcomed him still. It wasn’t too late, Jeremiah realized. He could still have all he desired, everything this life had denied him. The loneliness, the hate he had endured, the feelings of worthlessness—all could be erased.

  “But they are part of me ,” Jeremiah thought. “Just as my friends and my magic and my decisions and my mistakes are part of me. This life is mine, and I desire no escape from it.”

  He thrust the spear point downward.

  The entire floor exploded like a pane of glass. The work of generations, meticulously cared for hundreds of years, shattered at the affront of a single moment of self denial.

  Jeremiah winced as metal shrapnel sliced at his legs. The wrong-space buckled and twisted, becoming momentarily visible as it writhed, then faded as reality slowly subsumed the flaw in its fabric.

  His ears rang from the explosion. He could feel blood dripping from where he’d been hit by the chunks of adamantine that now littered the ground. Jeremiah listened for the whisper of the Abyss, worming into his thoughts. But there was only him now, and his undead, waiting in utter stillness.