CHAPTER 1.47 – OUT FROM THE DARK
Hugo despises the stone even before he has completed the ritual of identification. Anuk’s and his responses were instinctual, more reasonable the more his mind tallies. The closer he examines the thing. Anuk’s reaction was fuelled by the mural scene she had copied: the spiky-headed creature with the stone over its hand, highlighted both by the lines of radiance the sculptor had added and by the shading of what he remains certain was blood smeared across the stone.
His was more visceral. The stone is uncanny, too black, seeming to subtly suck light from the space around it. Then, as one’s attention is drawn into it like the illumination, it reveals itself as, yes, too dark, but not uniformly so. Seemingly, the closer your focus, the more was revealed. The black seems oily, weird substrates of colour playing across the thing’s shifting sheen. As he sits cross-legged before the crown, pouch and other items they had found down here, he is aware of the others. Thae, still stony-faced determination, marches towards the entrance as Rian carries the remains they could gather to the faux well.
Anuk, radiating the same distrust of the stone, is sat in the opposite corner of this nook. The woman’s posture is slouched, but he’s aware of her eyes boring into him. This helps to redouble his focus on the task at hand, namely prying apart the threads of magic bound into at least two of these objects. And, of course, seeking out similar threads in the others.
-x-
When he returns from his investigations, Anuk’s crouching over him, trying to read his eyes. As he shudders, balks at the information he read from the stone…that the stone told him, she gathers the thing into a pouch, mouth of the bag around her fingers so she can accomplish the task without touching the vile thing. “Cursed.” It’s not a question at all; it’s a certain statement. Apparently, she reads as much as she needs from his involuntary shiver, although Hugo worries about the calculating look in her eyes. He needs to shut that down.
“I told you about my dad, about killing him.” He says urgently, seeing her nod vaguely. She’s still partly elsewhere. “Well, that’s going to be tough. Part of me wondered if I could use this…thing. And I could…” He sees a swell of triumph, something akin to glee rising in the woman, hurries on. “But Anuk, we can’t. This thing? It’s a killer. A city killer. Thank the gods it was sealed in here. Look at the damage it did, and it was fucking trapped in this room, for who-knows how long!” Anuk sighs, resignation and irritation in her tone. “Yeah, I thought about that while you were…” she mimes an unflattering absent gaze that he hopes isn’t the way he looks during his invocations.
Anuk points to a tidy hole bored into the ceiling of the nook, close to where the door swings out into the room. The remains of a chain, links pulled apart to destroy its utility, are visible in the cavity. She kicks a chunk of bone across the floor. “I think this poor bastard was alive, sacrificed themselves to trap the monster.” Her expression’s unreadable. “One of the monsters. Huh. Didn’t accomplish much.”
Hugo shakes his head, impassioned by the things he felt, the things he’d heard. “The stone, it wants…” he sees Anuk’s eyes narrow at his terminology, presses on. “Yes, it wants you to be obsessed with it. Like a voice in your head, wheedling, powerful knowledge. Or adulation. It promises servants but really makes slaves. Starting with the person who thinks they’re controlling it.” He catches himself inside the horror, a new realisation chilling him. “Oh shit, I think that’s the difference…” The girl scowls, but not from impatience, he thinks. This is just her focused face.
“The difference! Between the things in the freezer and the skeletons!” He guesses that she recognises the shambling things and the fluid, capable guards, but not his point. He clicks his fingers, points at the ceiling. “The thing in the well! It was an accident, or a…fuckup. What if some of this forbidden knowledge was how to make guards, but there’s a process. And if you do it wrong, or don’t start in time, you get a shambler. Or that halfway thing in the well?”
Anuk’s staring into the middle distance, through the walls. “That maybe makes sense. So: Hornhead, he’s the charismatic leader. He’s got his followers, his herd, some true believers. But they’ve got to be quiet about it, secretive. Their knowledge is forbidden, like you say. Or only for the chosen, whatever. Whatever it takes to get folks to leave their lives in service to the cause.”
Hugo feels his eyes widen despite himself. He feels pinned to the floor. She’s blandly describing the basis of a con, the tools of a confidence man. Or, she has experience of being a mark. Either option is dangerous for him. The woman’s busy inside her head, though. She doesn’t seem to notice his mental flinch as she warms to her subject.
“So, they need a hideaway, ‘society’s corruption’ or whatever. A closed door for only the flock.” Hugo, wanting to save face, recover from his shock, blurts “But it all starts going wrong…” Anuk nods, grins at him. The grin has no warmth as her focus returns to a point through the wall. “Yeah, whether or not this gem has taken the ‘prophet’ or not, they don’t have the supplies. They don’t have water. Their crops are failing.” Hugo joins in, singsong: “And the dead are coming back to life!”
The pair shudder, immersed in similar images. Of joining this doomed crusade. Then having to fight enemies that were your friends as you’re already weakening. And they just won’t stay dead. Anuk is staring at the dented crown, her horror visibly shifting to fury. Sees her eyes flash as he reaches for the crown. Her hand darts towards his, but too slowly.
He picks up the piece. “Nothing magic about this, but it seems to be solid silver. Not magic, either” he confirms, indicating the rubies. “But this…” he reaches into the pristine, empty pouch, strains with his short arm, pulls out some previously hidden lining, turns the bag inside out. Like a magician’s trick, some clods of mouldy dust drop out, billowing when the hit the floor as three tiny but beautifully cut diamonds bounce among them. Unbidden, Hugo imagines one of the robed figures secreting food into the magic pouch while everyone else starves.
-x-
As they wander through the now-silent tomb, heading for the door, they are intercepted by Thae. The half-elf appears just as animated as before but less agitated. “Friend Hugo! Might I borrow you for a moment?” Hugo sees Anuk register this formality with a smile, although with less judgment than he might have anticipated. They passed through the guardroom, Thae beckoning them towards the well. Hugo marvels at this; while he was in his archanic trance, Rian and Thae had been hard at work depositing undead detritus and pieces of dessicated wood into the well. Hugo is perplexed until he catches the distinctive odour of lamp oil. Of course.
Hugo raises his hand, is about invoke the ring’s power, but freezes in doubt. He looks up at his friend in query. “You’re sure, Thae? Isn’t this desecration?” Shockingly, the half-elf nods decisively. Seeing his reaction, the half-elf smiles, explains “Maschalismos. We need them to stay dead, Hugo.” It takes him a moment to reframe something he has only ever considered a device in a drama (or, gruesomely, as a warning to rival criminals). The ritual dismemberment of a dead foe to prevent their ghost from revenge. He misses a world in which revenants were metaphorical, plot devices.
He trusts his friend, conjures a gout of flame into the hole in the ground. Almost giggles as Thae’s mother hen personality returns, hurrying them towards the door as oily smoke billows from the cylindrical shaft. They emerge into the overhang to find Rian and the hunters, stood down but vigilant. He expected to encounter Atheran, but the big man clarifies he wanted them all clear of the tomb before he alerted the woman. Hugo can see the hunters’ reaction to this, guilt that they haven’t sent for her. He marvels at how easily big, silent Rian could fit into the life of the village, a hero in the hunters’ eyes. “Allow me, I’d love to tell Atheran the good news” he announces, striding off before anyone can say otherwise.
-x-
He’s surprised that the elder’s vigilance hasn’t yet tripped to their return. He feels a sudden chill that another incursion might be afoot, then encounters a scene that stops him dead. He’s not far from the overhang when he spots the emerald haired woman ahead. She’s on a shallower part of the hill, posture crouched. Just as it dawns on him that her replacement limb wouldn’t previously have allowed this pose, the woman tips forward. The ungainly nature of her crouch is explained as her new prosthetic, previously compressed, straightens as her own leg whips over her head, propelling the cartwheel. For an instant, her long hair describes a perfect fan before she comes to a staggered landing, new limb almost slipping out from under her.
He gives her a moment, mostly for plausible deniability of the scene he witnessed. “Atheran!” He calls. The woman, whose face held fierce joy a moment ago, returns to her habitual scowl. “Your worshipfulness, you’ve returned. Still moi heart.” He allows her this, hopes she can drop the mask with Bertak sufficiently to show the smith some happiness, spare him some praise. He scans his own response to the near-somersault he just witnessed. Realises Bertak wouldn’t care for that, rather for the extension of life he has granted Atheran. Plus, the man knew for whom he was building. Praise could never have been the prize.
Nor thanks, he suspects, as the woman seems to be building a head of steam. He gets a sudden insight into Atheran. Hugo’s met people with egos fragile enough to accidentally reveal their errors in an attempt to save face. The man so terrified of exposing his own anxieties that he places them central to his personality. ‘Protects’ them with denials so focused that they reveal everything. Sure, we weren’t even talking about spiders, Derek, but we surely know you aren’t afraid of them. Atheran doesn’t strike him as that, rather as someone who’s channelling their responsibility so completely that it denies them any joy. Time to jump tracks, he decides, seeing the storm cloud in the woman’s face.
He leans in conspiratorially, raises a closed hand to the woman. Practically mimes looking around to ensure nobody’s prying. Instinctually, she leans in, scrutinising his offered hand, frowning at the spiked crown grasped in the other. He almost laughs as he shifts his body slightly as though shielding the emerald in his palm. He sobers as his mind flits again to Berin. The swell of emotion helps to engage the elder. “I don’t want her to know, but Nina needs a lute. This…” he rolls the gem between two fingers “…could buy her a fantastic instrument in a city, but I appreciate it may be tougher to source one here. We need to get going, but could I entrust this to you?”
He almost feels bad to have read the woman so accurately. Any thought of the ‘shame’ of being found to have joy inside her seems to evaporate in the face of responsibility. She takes the emerald solemnly, tucks it away while nodding her assent. “Oi’ve already asked around; there’s no lutes in the village bot a couple households have instruments they’ve been ignorin’.” He almost jumps when he hears a low chuckle in her voice. “Orton’s not goin’ teh get the better o’ me. Little girl’s goin’ to have ‘er choice of instruments.” She solemns to a tight, narrow smile. “Yer majesty.” Still, it’s more of a thawing than he had anticipated.
“We’ve cleared out the barrow, good lady.” He reflects her sarcasm with a deferential bow, a formal stance. Hands her the solid silver crown, relishing the surprise in the woman’s look. “Another trinket for the village coffers.” He grins, then Atheran registers the plume of dark smoke issuing from the overhang. As his comrades and the previously stationed hunters begin to troop down from the hideaway, Hugo clarifies. “Just a last little cleanup, but when the smoke clears, Rian has some ideas about a ‘year-round greenhouse’. And food storage!” he adds, thinking of the frozen locker.
As they join the group, Hugo slips into the role of arbitrating Atheran and Rian’s communication foibles. Helps the big man describe their suspicion that the red-roofed chamber, assuming the dust was dug out and replaced with soil, might grow crops in any season if supplied with sufficient water. Not too many crops, for sure, but every little bit of extra food might help sustain the village. Hugo counts as a win that Atheran is kept so occupied by the discourse that she fails to berate her hunters for neglecting to fetch her.
