Chapter V

A Dirge for an Echo

Fields. Endless Fields. Fields of gold—of sun.

The breath of the Giant flowing through the hair, and carrying the smell of wheat on a hot summer day.

Everything, gold: the crop, the sky, the faces of women and children, running and playing in the waist-high grass, even though the sparkling water droplets from yesterday's rain had not yet dried from the heat. Trees in the distance, shedding pre-autumn leaf into soft bark shadow. The occasional house, standing high against a backdrop of red, orange, and yellow as the sun set over the distant desert in the west. The creeping dusk in the east, like wet paint flowing onto a canvas, morphing red to purple, orange to pink, yellow to red, with the black-blue to follow with its innumerable white specks for the children to wish on for things that children desire. But that would come later; the light still remained, and in the grass stood…

The man stirred as the elevator continued its dragging ambience. Though he resolved not to fall too deep into sleep with the Tower's weight still apparent, he felt that a rest was in order; their time on the elevator would likely be their only chance to do so. He had found a relatively clean place on it near the lever, which he had propped his head crudely upon, Lesrahýr having curled near him. It was difficult to ignore the scented mix of faeces and blood, still somewhat strong, but this moment was better than any that they had experienced for the past four days.

It had been a good thirty minutes since Mad Ghost had gone silent, and the man shivered.

Jailwalkers. They would be forever etched in his mind, especially that last one, screaming in the bloody waste it had created. Optimistically, he hoped that he would never lay eyes on them again. Pessimistically, he had the foreboding feeling that he would, and all too soon, at that.

Their image and the sounds of their screams disrupted the positive memories of his homeland that he attempted to focus on, despite the land's ultimate fate. For every running child, there was a Jailwalker speeding after it with its limbs flapping in that unnecessarily exaggerated manner. For every smiling woman, there was a Jailwalker behind her, its horribly stretched and clawed hands ready to close in around her head. In every house, there was a Jailwalker moving with such fluidity that those sleeping in their beds would never see the terror coming. In the branches of every tree, a Jailwalker hid, ready to launch itself out of it to devour the families that had taken to resting in the shade, their eyes closed and completely unaware of the danger that they were in. They hid in the grass, fell from the sky, and came like a shrieking tidal wave out of the great desert in the west, vertically stretched in body, seven feet tall, and clashing with the world around them.

In the end, there would be nothing else but Jailwalkers. Their shrill throats would torment him forever.

The man sighed.

It was not as if there was a land to return to anyway, Jailwalkers or not.

His thoughts were cut short by the sudden halt of the sound of the dragging stone. The elevator was still moving, suspended by unknown mechanisms (the man did not bother to pay any mind to the hypothetical nature of those mechanisms; he was far past curiosity in this damned place), but there were no walls now. He stood up. Was the trip to end now?

He saw faint light: the light of fire, dancing on dark rock wall.

At the man's feet, Lesrahýr stirred and revealed his eyes to the man, those golden irises being the only thing aside from the light that the man could see. He cracked a small smile at his companion, knowing that the wolf would see it.

"Time to wake up," the man whispered.

With a low grunt, Lesrahýr stood up, his body now a more visible silhouette as the light drew nearer. The man stroked the wolf's head and scratched him behind his ears for a moment, before patting him in the side affectionately.

The man stepped cautiously toward the platform's edge and gazed downward. What he saw was an enormous cavern—a colossal expanse so long that the other side could not be seen. For all the man knew, it could have been as long as, or longer than, the valley that they had crossed in the canyon—the one whose darkness from which those fleshless beings had climbed from and overrun in the night.

It appeared that it was daytime topside; rays of light cast down from an unknown ceiling, granting some cursory luminescence to a massive lake that, for the most part, flooded the cavern. The elevator was taking them down to a small islet near the lake's edge, which was in turn connected via a natural bridge of rock to the mouth of a small cave, above which the sources of the faint light—a couple of torches—were mounted. The air smelled pleasantly moist and musty and the faint sound of water droplets hitting the lake was apparent. Plip…plip…plip…

The man backed up toward the centre of the platform, and in the next moment, the elevator made contact with the ground, emanating a sound similar to the crushing of rocks. The man guessed that it had not been used for a long time, perhaps centuries, or millennia.

Save for the plip of the water droplets and the faint pop from the torches as their fires ate at their unseen sustenance the man presumed it to be ancient sorcery of some sort; there was obviously no one here to keep these lit, much less the ones in the Catacombs, what with all the Jailwalkers haunting the corridors.

The cavern and the lake were quiet. Never more clearly could the man hear his own breathing, along with that of the wolf. The lake water looked clean and calm, and the man was half-tempted to submerge himself in it to help in nullifying the bloody, faecal smell about his clothes, but he knew better; no matter how calm or peaceful, this lake could be hiding anything.

He gazed out at the expanse. In the distance, greyed by the darkness, he could just barely see the outline of a massive structure, stretching over the lake and connecting the two sides of the cavern.

A bridge?

The man looked dismayed; between them and the structure, there was an intimidating gap and the man had the sinking feeling that it was going to be their objective. Not to mention, there was no telling exactly how confusing a network of caves in a place like this would be. It could take them an hour or two; it could also take them a month, and by then, they would be long dead.

The man turned his head toward the mouth of the small cave, but snapped it back again when he thought he saw a face—that same, dead-eyed, taunting face that he remembered from the edge of the Catacombs. But, like before, it was gone before the man could verify its existence.

So it wasn't Mad Ghost. It was something else.

But was it anything? Was it real?

The man touched his chest, where the charm rested. Without looking down at him, he addressed the wolf: "Let's go, Lesrahýr. We have much ground to cover."

They ventured across the miniature isthmus. Just low enough to reach, the man grabbed and yanked one of the torches out of the rock, little pebbles falling out of the emptied hole that remained, crepitating on the rock way, and plashing into the water. Together, he and the wolf disappeared into the mouth of the cave.

Behind them, outside of their notice, the elevator's lever clanked back into the upright position and the platform began its long journey to the Catacomb intersection from whence it came. Ripples formed and expanded in the water near the isthmus, and in their centres, small bubbles arose to the lake's surface, where they burst with a subtle pop.

The intrusion of life again. Dare a living man's feet tread once again upon a land so far gone? Moreover, dare they to invade the earth underneath, which had long belonged to the dead? Dare they?

Nay, declared the Black Shepherd, Forgive no trespasses; Hell hath no mercy.

Following was the subtle stirring of earth and water.

How dark these caves were.

The man's hair stood on the back of his neck; not only was this tunnel narrow to suffocation, but they reminded him of the first hallway that they had walked through within the tower, and how that Jailwalker—

The word echoed in his mind, and every time it did, he snuck a backward glance at the blackness behind them. How likely was it that they were being followed? The man was almost positively convinced that they were.

But a Jailwalker would not be so subtle; this presence that he felt in his stomach was something else.

The narrowness of the cave did, at least, give them less in the way of directions to expect an ambush from, though that was by no means a comforting thought; there were things in this world that could pass through walls, after all. If such apparitions existed down here, then they were most certainly doomed.

That is, unless they were instead being watched.

The man tried to push this train of thought out of his mind. He was slightly uplifted by Lesrahýr's presence. Even if both he and the wolf were powerless against what they could stumble upon next, there was a certain comfort in the notion that neither of them had to die alone, even if dying here was a clear path to a cheap mockery of true death that denied one their peace and an ascension to the realm of the Golden Ones. Had the man not known better, he would have thought that the curse of the tower both killed whoever lived and resurrected whoever had died already.

But the man knew better.

Or hoped it.

The cave was widening. They were probably coming up on a clearing. The man instinctively placed his hand on his knife sheath.

He had thought correctly: it was a clearing—a chamber—ovular, and, predictably, there were no less than three paths open to them on its opposite side, not to mention other openings overlooking it. The man, rethinking, moved his hand to his crossbow, which he took out and held, bolt knocked. He would avoid using explosive bolts; they would be certain to cause potentially dangerous cave-ins, and he did not know what else the noise could draw.

They stepped into the chamber. The man could just barely see the other side of it with the torch light.

Everything was still and silent. They had travelled away from the water, and the plip of water droplets could no longer be heard. The room was empty.

Making a cautious sweep of the room, he stepped forward with equal caution, hugging the wall to his right. He moved slowly and quietly, Lesrahýr following closely behind him.

A minute passed as they cleared around half of the chamber's length. Having paid most of his attention to the three openings that he could now see more clearly, he was surprised when his right shoulder brushed against something on the wall. With a gasp, he jumped back a bit, levelling his crossbow at whatever it was.

What he saw was two feet—two skeletal feet, run through with a large nail. His eyes travelled upward, to its legs, its pelvis, and its ribcage until finally, he saw the skull, hanging down sideways with its jaw open. Four more nails kept it aloft upon an old, long, rotten wood board by its hands and shoulders, the rest of its body being pulled out by gravity. Like the room, it was still, and so was the crusted blood that ran in a flat waterfall down the wall behind it. The man slowly lowered his crossbow, an expression of utmost pity overtaking his features. The sight of the skeleton deeply disheartened him, and his free hand moved to clench his chest, where the charm was.

He lowered his head briefly, in his mind saying a prayer for the tortured soul that once resided within these bones.

Eventually, his hand fell from the charm and he raised his chin again. He began to tread further on, but stopped short when he found himself enthralled, somehow, by the skull's empty sockets. His expression went from pity to mistrust.

Then, to horror.

Within the sockets, blue orbs were fading in, brightening fast. The man halfway raised his crossbow again. By that time, the orbs were completely illuminated.

A Stal.

Its jaw, which, strangely, was missing none of its teeth, slowly and silently closed, and its skull abruptly turned to "look" at the man with those glowing blue orbs. The sudden movement caused the man's crossbow-holding arm to twitch upward and Lesrahýr to drop into a guarded stance, growling.

The man and the tortured Stal stared each other down silently for a few minutes, until the man turned his head to the left. His jaw dropped as he saw more pairs of blue orbs all around the room, all belonging to other Stals nailed to boards at varying heights.

All of them looking at him.

He turned in a complete circle, meeting the stares of all of these tortured souls (he counted twenty-three), before coming back to the first one. The man waved his hand behind him at the growling Lesrahýr, who immediately fell silent.

The man and the Stal locked eyes (if the latter's orbs could indeed be considered as such) for a few more moments, the man looking sceptical, yet receptive. The Stal's gaze carried an air of invitation and of command, yet the man felt no malevolence.

Eventually, the Stal broke the stare, turned its skull, and focused its orbs in on the direction of the three cave mouths.

Right at that moment, the man brought his crossbow to bear in that direction when he heard moaning there—tortured, needy, familiar moaning, followed by the sound of bone clanking on rock combined with the pressing or squeezing of meat.

The creatures from the valley abyss, one sluggishly limping out from each of the three passageways.

The man took a tentative step backward and, following movement in the corner of his eye, he turned to see two more of them, hobbling toward them out of the cave from whence they had come, with more approaching and falling from the overlooking openings into the chamber with resonant, fleshy, crackling plops.

Movements weak and retarded, they hoisted themselves up and regained their footing, their soft cries hungering for salvation—and flesh—as blood pumped out through all of the openings in what remained of their musculature, leaving large, fresh stains in their wake. Their claw-fingered, bony hands automatically rose to the fronts of their chests as they were drawn by the warm life force that they sensed streaming off of the living duo that had wandered into their midst. Their bodies were loose and incoherent, their torsos swaying to and fro supererogatory with every laboured step, with their heads flying every which way as a result, unable to achieve any notion of stiff stability. Their ravaged legs bent inward, further frustrating their movements.

Were these the "Dervens" that Mad Ghost had mentioned? The man assumed as much.

The man wasted no time; he let fly with a bolt at the nearest one to his right. The bolt ripped through its skull, a thin funnel of blood squeezing and squirting its way briefly out of the hole, before the Derven fell face-first onto the hard floor in a meaty heap. It burbled its last moan, but was drowned out by those of its kin, not at all bothered by their fallen comrade as they gimped past it.

There was no path of retreat. They were cornered, and would need to fight their way through. The chamber was not very large; the Dervens were coming discomfortingly close now.

"We will have to take them, my friend," the man began, the wolf barking in agreement. He glanced at the Stals on the walls. All of them seemed to be staring past the Dervens, and directly toward the left exit.

He understood, silently nodding his thanks.

One of the Dervens made a particularly bold advance, only to have the man drive the torch into its face. It caught fire, the Derven's outcry sounding quite similar to both that of a tortured man and a crying child, mixed and morphed into something intolerable.

The man held the torch menacingly at the other Dervens, who were suddenly quite reluctant to approach him.

The moans of the Dervens took on a frustrated demeanour as they continued to lunge at the man, yet stumbled back when he waved the torch near them.

The one whose face had caught fire had fallen silent, its head no more than a worthless pile of ashes in the middle of the chamber, with the rest of its body following. The others put a noticeable amount of space between themselves and the conflagrating corpse.

These creatures were persistent; this trick would not work for much longer.

"Time to go, Lesrahýr," he man said, flustered. He glanced down briefly at his companion; "Straight at the exit; the one on the left."

The wolf did not return the glance, but barked, keeping his eyes on the clamouring creatures, their moans having grown into desperate screams.

"Ready?" the man yelled. The wolf barked again.

"Go!"

With that, the man and the wolf charged into the mob, the former waving the torch back and forth, setting more Dervens on fire, and bashing the butt of his crossbow into the skulls of those who retaliated, while the latter simply ploughed his way through whatever stood in the way.

It was only a matter of seconds; they reached the exit quickly. Just as the man managed to step through the cave mouth, he was tripped by the well-timed placement of a Derven's hand. The torch slipped out of his hand and flew forward onto the ground, out of his reach, as the hand attempted to pull him backward. He turned over, kicking a crouching Derven away with his free foot, but was unable to loosen the other from that grabbing hand. The man cried out in frustration as the other Dervens moved in for the kill.

He heard a loud, thunderous growl, and was shocked to see Lesrahýr leap back through the cave mouth into the mob. The resulting fall of all the Dervens at the front lost that hand its grip on his foot. The man scurried to his feet, running over to grab the torch, before turning around, his expression one of horror.

"Lesrahýr!" he screamed. But all that he could see through the opening was a writhing mess of bone, muscle, and blood. The man hesitated, and in that moment, two Dervens broke through the mouth to come after him. The nearest one swiped, digging through his right arm.

The man cried out in irate pain, and, overcome with grief, dropped the torch again and lashed out, grabbing that Derven's head with his bare hand and bashing it into the jagged rock wall behind him with fluid brutality. It collapsed to the ground, either lifeless or dazed, it did not matter. He turned again, driving his boot into the torso of the second Derven, before launching a crossbow bolt at it. It pierced cleanly through the side of its head and then into the wall, holding the creature limp and bleeding.

More were coming, and the man was forced to pick up the torch and retreat through the narrow tunnel with the Dervens clamouring after him with their selfish cries, his eyes welling up as he went. He tried to hold back the tears, so that they did not impede his vision in this dim passage.

He came up on another Derven in the tunnel. With a furious, aggrieved cry, he slammed his boot into its gaping jaw, breaking its pointed teeth and sending it flying a few feet backward. He leapt over it and kept running, his breathing heavy and inconsistent.

Soon enough, all even, rational thought escaped him.

Lesrahýr… Lesrahýr, no…

His eyes ceased to see what was in front of him, and instead, all that he could perceive was that which was behind him. Images flashed in his mind, depicting his dearest friend—images of those monsters clawing him to death, pulling his legs off, and victual what was left.

His pace faltered. The path ceased to matter. In that moment, he could hear the fell heartbeat of the Caverns, and was instantly lost to it.

Vibrations.

What man would dare to tread here? The man from the east, that's who!

Such curious vibrations.

He is the man from the east. He walks where he wills!

Vibrations.

Or at least, the man thinks that he walks where he wills.

The earth is vibrating.

But the man is not allowed to pass through here. No, we think he should stay a while!

The air is vibrating.

So let's come out to meet him! Show him your hospitality!

My skin is vibrating.

Yes… Go to meet him! Show him how friendly we all are!

Why was it all vibrating?

Wolfie was easy enough to convince! We can invite him too!

Who's there?

Why, your friendly neighbourhood deceased, at your service! Who else?

Is it you again, Mad Ghost?

Mad Ghost? Hey, do you know a 'Mad Ghost?' No? How about you? 'Mad Ghost?'

It must be Mad Ghost again, isn't it?

Nope, no 'Mad Ghost' here! Just us, your friendly neighbourhood deceased!

Where's my friend?

Why, right here! We're your friends!

What have you done with my friend?

Oh, come on! Don't you want to be friends with us instead? We're a lot more fun…!

No—where is he?

Come on… You know that you want to…!

No. No, no, no…

Tunnels. Endless tunnels.

Dark tunnels. Tunnels that he could not see in.

Tunnels with history. Here is gathered history. Termina's history.

Here is gathered Termina's bloody history of greed and hatred.

Another swaying, dead creature. Shoot it. It drops. It dies again. A death atop another. Move on.

Follow the eyes of the Stals. Cut through the dead. Shoot through the dead. Kill through the dead.

Make the dead, dead. Make the dead dead, dead, if necessary. Sometimes, the dead just don't die.

Whispers.

A familiar voice. A voice that should not speak anymore. A lovely voice. An attractive voice.

A voice that he did not want to hear here.

A dead voice, speaking the words of someone who should not be heard—who should be dead.

Where was it coming from? It was getting louder. So maybe he was getting closer.

Why?

Why this voice? Why here? Why now? Why ever?

That cut throat—it should be resting. But no. Not here. Here, the dead just don't die. Not even the beauty of the dead.

The dead just don't die.

Don't die.

Don't die.

Please don't die!

Please don't die again! Not again! Not—

The man's eyes opened and he felt the cool breeze hit his face. His jaw dropped.

Those smells—that colour—that sun. Those distant trees. Those simple country homes. The way that they dotted the fields that had no end or edge.

He was standing in the Golden Crop, the blades of the grass shimmering under the bright sun, bending and giving way to the sweet, sweet breath of the Giant.

He was standing in Vegatria.

But none of that interested him. What drew his eyes was the woman standing in the grass, about thirty feet away. Her back was turned to him so that he could see her magnificent brown hair just flowing in perfect waves on the Giant's breath. Clothed in nothing but a simple cotton dress—the kind that a house wife of Vegatria would wear. It was nothing flamboyant—nothing special at all. What was special was the woman. This woman, whose beautifully pale skin reflected the sunlight, was a goddess in her own right.

She was the love of his life—and he was nervous.

He swallowed, and took a step forward.

She began to turn around.

He stopped after that one step. His lip quivered. Tears welled up in his eyes.

She turned around completely, her neck slashed. She bled profusely onto her red, cotton, button shirt, from both the gaping wound and from her perfect lips.

Her perfect smile.

Yes, that's right. The last thing that she ever did was smile. It was such a beautiful, dimpled smile upon an irresistible, rounded face full of bliss. A loving smile. An effortless smile, as if the cut wasn't there at all. All of the blood in the world could not mask that smile.

She opened her mouth to speak, but could not. Her vocals were severed. But he knew what she said. He said it back, his heart crying out and skipping a beat as he did so. Then, her eyes, gold as the wolf's—more gold than the Golden Crop—closed, a single tear running off that rosy cheek to join the sparkling droplets left from yesterday's rain.

They would never open again.

And there she stood, fading away.

Then, he saw them. Jailwalkers—three of them, spaced about twenty feet apart—hundreds of yards away, their mouths gaping and their legs pumping through the grass toward him, befouling the Golden Crop. Wilting it. Killing it.

The man lowered his head. The tears fell from his eyes and his shoulders trembled. Then, his fingers trembled. Then, his knees trembled. His stomach plummeted. The air in his chest thinned.

He did not sink to his knees, but he did sob. He sobbed for a good few seconds.

Eternal seconds.

And then, he breathed in. He collected himself. His eyes shot forward.

One hundred yards. He could hear their screams now.

He drew his crossbow. He knocked an explosive bolt, lighting it with the torch.

There was fire in his eyes. It was brighter than the Golden Crop, and certainly more enraged. His eyes were on the Jailwalker in the middle.

He screamed as loud as he could, and then charged. He felt the Giant's breath reverse its direction. It was at his back. It was driving him forward.

He would show no mercy. These fields would be painted black.