When you’re depressed, you don’t want to do anything but be in the shadows. A social calling becomes a trifling, a duty becomes a trifling, even a crisis becomes a trifling. I faced a crisis now. But I didn’t go for the door, and the light beyond. I only stared at the creepy sketches on my parchment. Sketches I wasn’t drawing. Yet they were there, on the portrait I’d been inking, bleeding into its paper.
A beast took shape from the ink strokes. Its claws menaced the illustration of my dead lover I’d quilled in myself. The beast was lunging out from an abyss. Its vapory madness spiraled down to distant depths of the canvas background. The foreign images twisted my insides to a web. I knew I should go and find help, find an explanation, find somebody to comfort me from the murky presence at work here. Yet I only gazed as the abyss inked in darker. Its shadowy swirls dragged me further down into my own sadness. Everything else was a trifling.
I heard steps then the door creak. Torch light swept across the room. Statues cast shadows over walls. Mice ran between graves. Centipedes crawled through the bone piles.
“What in the seven hells draws you to the catacombs of all places, Nessa?” It was my Lord-Father’s stern voice.
I groaned and put my hands to my eyes to spare them the light.
Lord-Father swung his torch over me and the scatter of portraits on the floor. He snatched one up, eyed it and frowned. The likeness matched my dead lover Lyall. He glanced over the others. Lyall’s face stared back at him from each and every one.
“Again with your lover Lyall,” he scoffed. “You need to let go.”
I rolled away from him. “No.”
“Lyall’s gone. Lyall’s dead. Lyall’s a corpse, stinking and rotting, deep in the depths under the Whisper Dungeon.”
“Not to me,” I uttered.
“A distraction would serve you well. How about our poor subjects on the borderlands. Do them a kindness. Round up a few knights and hunt the waste-man raiders pillaging their farms and riding off with their children.”
“You know that’s not my heart,” I said.
“We’ll be seeing bloodshed either way. The raiders’ spring campaign will crash our doorstep by month’s end.”
I drooped my head and sighed, sorrowful. “I’ll be buried away with my portraits.”
My Lord-Father snarled and slammed his fist over a statue. “By Gods, you can’t spend your life like this, under a rock, in the dark.”
“Darkness haunts me.”
“Aye, Nessa the Night Flower. Tis a pain.”
I looked up at him. Night Flower was the nickname he’d given me when I first became a shut-in. It was worse now.
I glanced at the door. A knock rapped its oak.
“What is it then?” called out Lord-Father.
“A message, m’ lord. From the Whisper Dungeon.”
“Bring it to me.”
A servant boy slipped past the door and bowed his head. Hurried to me Lord-Father and handed him a pouch. A feral stench overpowered my nostrils. I coughed. Lord-Father snorted. He thumbed the pouch’s leather and raised an eyebrow. Wormy little shapes squirmed beneath its surface.
He untied its string. “I should’ve never named Sarpedge warden of the dungeon. But the waste savages’ coming assault forced my hand.”
Lord-Father reached his fingers into the pouch. I watched and grimaced. He grunted, yanked his hand away and the pouch fell to the floor. He rubbed his fingers and blood dripped from dozens of prick marks and plinked against a tomb.
A tuff of dark fur tumbled out the pouch. I gasped. I stared at the fur then glanced back to the portrait and the beast inked mysteriously over its parchment. The same stringy hairs covered the beast’s skin.
“This message was supposed to have been a summary of the interrogation reports. I take this to mean they’re not coming,” Lord-Father said.
He sucked the blood from his fingers and spit it over bones. “What horror has come to pass at my dungeon?”
“This new warden,” I said, “which manner of man is he?”
“A warlock. He wields the blackest of arts to torment prisoners into telling what they know. Worst of which is … demonic possession.”
I seethed. “And this is who you had Lyall working under? A demon conjurer?”
“If raiders overrun this city,” he said, “they will skin us both and hang our pelts from the gates. Afterwards they’ll butcher every boy old enough to fight and sell those that remain in the wastes, to toil and burn, beneath a blazing sun.”
“I understand,” I said.
“You don’t. You couldn’t possibly know until you’ve carried that weight for yourself. Every decision I make serves one purpose. To save us all from miserable extermination.”
“Yes, Lord-Father.”
“It’s for this very reason that I can’t personally ride to the Whisper Dungeon and root out the mess. War preparations require my attention here. I need you to go, Nessa. Restore order and return with information that will help us ward off the attack.”
“Is there no one else who can go?”
“No, Nessa. Duty calls.”
I looked him in the eyes. “Very well. I shall make haste.”
My Lord-Father marched toward the door. Then turned.
“Focus on the intelligence we need. This realm can’t brook a moment’s loss wallowing over your dead lover.”
My Lord-Father left. I stood up and glanced one last time at the beast lunging from an abyss. Then I started off, head down, dragging my feet.
I was near tears as I strode beneath the passageways’ cobwebs. The catacombs made me sad, but leaving them made me sadder. I thought of Lyall while walking over the cloudy oil paints staining my chambers floor. He should’ve never been under the command of a warlock. I holstered the leather scabbard to my belt as I contemplated visiting the dungeon where Lyall died and not even finding his quarters to lay flowers. I mounted my mare at the stables and rode past the clock tower and its gargoyles. Then I galloped into the woods, where the morning fog turned the leaves to ash grey.
By early evening the fog had lifted, but the leaves had given way to pine needles. The cold northern air stung my skin and my breath twisted beyond my lips. The Whisper Dungeon’s upper reaches rose over the trees, in the distance, a few miles off. I slowed my horse to a trot and began to glance through the brush for anything out of the ordinary. When you got a big spider, there’ll be a big web. And I wanted to know just what was coming.
A branch shook through the pines. Snow fell from its twigs.
I pulled at the reins to stop. Then called out. “Who goes there?”
A girl popped up from behind a bush and raised her hands. “Please don’t hurt me horses.”
“I don’t want your horses,” I said.
The girl’s eyes grew large with fright, as if I’d just uttered the scariest words she’d ever heard. She whipped around and ran.
I cracked the reins. My horse brayed and dashed into the woods. The girl looked back. Her blonde hair swung. Her brown dress bounced. Her boney ankles flailed. She’d go down easier than the knights I joisted with at the castle. That was certain.
I jumped from my saddle and grabbed the dress. The two of us rolled atop each other. I pushed myself up and snatched the girl by the hair. I hissed my blade free from its scabbard and pressed it close to the lass’s pale throat.
The girl shut her eyes tightly and began to pray. “Old Gods, of highlands and low, armor me in courage and wis–”
“All I want to do is talk to ya,” I scolded. “Why make a mess of it?”
The girl opened her eyes slowly and stared up. “You’re not going to sacrifice me?”
“No.”
“Nor me horses?”
“What horses?” I asked.
“They’re farther out, yoked into me cart.”
“I’m not from the dungeon,” I said. “I’m here to root out those problems.”
“And ye only want to talk?”
“Aye. A friendly chat.”
The girl eyed the blade at her throat. “How friendly?”
I held the blade still. “This is as friendly as I get.”
The girl frowned. “Shame. I was hoping you’d turn nice. I like nice girls.”
“Ye from the nearby town?” I asked. “Braxlon?”
“How long will this be? Can we check on my horses first?”
I let her up. “Lead the way, lass.”
“Name’s Camda,” the girl said.
“I’ll ask me questions while we walk, Camda.”
“What’s your name?” Camda asked.
“What were ye doing in the forest?” I asked.
“Collecting firewood to sell in town.”
“Do ye know what’s going on at the Whisper Dungeon?”
“Bad things,” Camda said.
“How do ye know that?”
“None from the dungeon come to town anymore. Though some say that’s best, what with all they’d been doing.”
“None?” I asked, shocked. “How do they get their food?”
“Been a time since the people there were buying for sup, even before they stopped visiting,” Camda said.
“Gods, what were they buying?”
Horses snorted in the brush ahead. Camda pulled at a yoke and led them out. I noticed her shadow stretching long over their icy tracks.
“It’s getting to be late in the day,” I said. “Come with me to the dungeon. Ye can finish there.”
“A lordess, aren’t ye?” Camda asked.
“Aye. Will be.”
“What’s your name, lordess?”
“Nessa.”
“As ye wish, Nessa,” Camda said.
She stepped into her cart, clicked her tongue, and snapped the reins. I mounted my mare and trotted ahead. The road curved up. Wind grew stronger. It carried a feral odor that prickled my nose. Pines rattled above. I sensed a sickness close. Then the Whisper Dungeon came into view, atop a hill, its wall ringing the upper slopes.
I slowed my mare to a walk and went in through a break in the gate. Fierce gusts seemed to whisper against its spikes high overhead as I passed. Inside the courtyard the shadows turned darker. The keep crouched behind catapults, gallows, and whipping posts. Its towers hid under a drift of low clouds. Rough mortar closed away the windows.
I looked back to Camda. The shade cut her face into harsh blotches of black and white.
“Have ye been up here before?” I asked.
Camda nodded. “Plenty, as a youngling. Old stable master McKens let me brush the horses and feed ‘em apples. Once I even rode with him in the forest when he was breaking in a stallion for the guards’ captain.”
She smiled. “I dreamt of an apprentice under his direction. But then the place started to change. One day he told me not to come back, for me own good.”
“Ye quit coming, yet the dungeon steward still went to town for goods?”
“Not the steward,” Camda said. “Was the warden himself and those in robes that followed him ‘round.”
“What did they buy?” I asked.
“Strange animals, but not for eating. Black chickens, black rats. And something else as well.”
“Spit it out.”
“Prostitutes went missing,” Camda said. “Few at first, then more and more.”
“What did they do with them?”
Camda shrugged. “Some spoke of a beast.”
I thought back to the portrait of Lyall. The sketches that seemed to draw themselves.
“What kind of beast?” I asked.
“Dar–” Camda started to say.
I turned my head. I heard rustling. A chain swung off one of the whipping posts.
Camda pointed down. “There’s crisp tracks. They’re fresh.”
I crouched to get a better look. They seemed to be human footprints. But the toes cut way out from the soles, and they twisted, knotted and deformed.
I balled my fist and held it over another set of marks to the side, to compare the two.
“It’s as if somebody’s dragging their knuckles,” Camda said.
I nodded. “With one long arm.”
I pushed myself up and started to run.
“Come on,” I called back.
“Wait,” Camda shouted. “Not that way! Stop!”
I kept running. Icy snow thwacked beneath my boots as it broke. Frosty air pulled at my hair and whispered in my ears. I zagged around a set of stocks and saw a fiend. It was hobbling. Stringy skin dangled from its face. Its one long arm lugged behind, crooked and festering with big, bright boils.
The fiend saw me. Our eyes locked. Its face was half man, half hideous. Like a fish sliced open, its organs bloody before gutting. The fiend grit its few remaining teeth and grumbled.
Then it raced much faster. Strangely fast. So fast it flashed around a corner and was gone. I ran harder. I angled in front of a catapult to try to head the fiend off.
Then I paused and listened and heard growls. I didn’t think it was the fiend. Sounded like an animal. I searched left and right. Could be close. I started sprinting again. The air felt different. It stuck to my skin with a slimy wetness. The growling got louder. I looked across the whipping posts. A skeleton hung cuffed to the one in front me. I stepped backwards, onto something that crunched. A boney hand. My heart raced.
There were eyes on me. They prickled me like mangy fur. I heard steps and spun around. Paw prints pounded through the snow. The ice broke and gave way. Yet I saw no animal. An invisible beast strode in the courtyard. I froze stiff. The tracks were large as lion’s and cut a line straight for me. I saw them get closer and I started to walk back. My hand hit a stock and then I bumped against its iron clasp.
Heavy breathing panted over my ear. Then I felt the hot, moist exhaling against my head. I whipped around and stared up. There was nothing there, but for a collar. It hung alone in the air, over the stocks. I hissed with fright. Drool wet my face and slimed down my neck.
I ran. The paw tracks thudded behind me. I turned a corner, past a pile of catapult boulders, and stopped dead. Dozens of huge hounds barked and pushed against a fence. I glanced at the fence’s thin, flimsy wire. Its rustier strands had already crumbled.
A wolf-sized dog jabbed its claws through, busting away a foot of fencing. The hounds growled angrier. I gasped. My hand fell to my sword’s pommel.
I paced back, ready to draw my blade, breathing heavily.
Then the ghostly paw prints scratched the snow beside me. I turned and saw them coming fast. Right for me. I ducked and felt movement in the air above, like the invisible beast sprang and just missed me. Then a catapult broke overhead. Splinters hit my hair and hands. A bite mark dug through the catapult’s wood. Its arm creaked and bent. I yelled and ran as hard as I could. The hounds barked wildly. The fence shook and banged. I was sure I would die.
I glanced back to see if the hounds had busted out. My foot tripped on something and I fell hard, over snow-hidden boards. They gave. I crashed down, through the dark, deep into a black cellar.
I hacked struggling to breathe. The air had been knocked out of my chest. I rolled over and felt a wetness soaking into my trousers and tunic. Liquid dripped nearby. A pungent stink filled my nostrils. It reminded me of the canals under the city and their black mold that the sanitation hands delt with.
I got to my knees and swung my satchel around. I felt its wool sopping wet and sighed. I stood up and tilted my head to listen for hounds. Their barks sounded soft, coming from the distance.
“Nessa, you down there?” It was Camda’s voice.
I looked up and saw her standing overhead, in the light.
I pointed to a ladder by Camda’s shoes. “Get down here. Before the hounds see ya.”
Camda hopped onto the steps. “Are they loose? I warned you not to go this way. Those dogs are mean.”
“The dogs were bad, but there’s something else out there. Much worse.”
Camda glanced around. “I can barely see anything. It’s too dark to be down here.”
“I’ve got torches,” I said.
I dropped my satchel and took out a torch. I held it over flint and struck off sparks. But its cloth wrap didn’t catch. I struck more sparks. The cotton didn’t burn. I pressed my hand against the fabric. Foul water drenched my fingers.
“Gods helps us.” I threw the torch into the darkness.
“What’s wrong?” Camda asked.
“The torch is wet.”
I rustled into my satchel and felt the others. Then tossed the damp ones to the floor and lit a dry torch.
“Only three good ones,” I said. “We better hurry.”
“Hurry where? I have to be back to town soon. Sup nears and I earn extra by helping with the crowd at the inn.”
“Your work with me is far more pressing, lass. Waste-men raiders will attack this realm and records from this dungeon could thwart their plans. Otherwise, we may all be marched into those burning plains.”
“I want to help,” Camda said. “I do. But if I don’t work me shift, I’ll be out on the streets and die of cold long before any waste men arrive.”
I clinked the coins in my bag. “Whatever you’d get for the night, I’ll double it. Triple it even.”
“You lords don’t understand how we live. I’ll lose the job and who knows when another will come my way. Even a week’s worth of crowns ain’t gonna help that.”
I raised the torch to Camda. Her yellow hair shined bright and beautiful and pure.
“Love horses, don’t ye, Camda?”
“Aye, I do,” she said. “What of it?”
“How ‘bout ye apprentice at the castle stables? I could arrange it.”
Camda’s eyes welled with tears. “Truly?”
“Tis a bad time to be there. The waste men are coming. Better ye wait till the fighting stops.”
Camda wiped her cheek. “It’s a deal.”
I nodded.
“We’ll cover as much ground as we can,” I said. “No stone uncovered.”
I led the way, through a hallway out the cellar, into the dungeon. Its bars and shackles and thick iron doors. The blood-splattered cuffs left in solitary holes; the dry flesh flaking from collars in open pits. In the hours that followed, I scoured through all of them for records, answers, anything that could shed some light. But found nothing. Except sadness.
This place was like my tombs beneath the castle. But lonelier, emptier. My depression haunted me stronger than ever. It told me the mission was a trifling, the realm was a trifling, my life was a trifling. I need only lie down and despair. But I didn’t give in to the darkness. I fought. For now.
Camda stopped and pointed. A figure crouched in the cell across from us. I rasped my blade free from its scabbard and charged into the tight cell. The figure screamed with fear and fell over.
I waved the torch light to get a better view. Stringy hair, one long arm, and a face like a half-gutted fish. It was the fiend from earlier. He’d been huddled over the sewer chute. I held the torch and stared down the chute. I saw nothing but rock and scum.
“What ye looking for down there, fiend?” I asked.
The fiend raised its hand. Creepy crawlers curved across the fingers.
“Hungry is all. Bugs is the best I can find for food anymore ‘round this cursed dungeon.”
“Why not go to town?” I asked.
“With this face?” the fiend said. “They’ll burn me bound to a wicker man.”
“Why ye like that, fiend? What happened?”
“The demons.”
“Possessed ye, didn’t they?” I asked. “Were ye a prisoner here?”
“An interrogator. My name’s Rory Filcole. Please, if you could tell me family–”
“There’ll be time for them later, Rory,” I said.
“Lordess,” Camda scolded. “Hear him out. The man misses his loved ones.”
I eyed her. “Two torches left, lass. Don’t forget that.”
I turned back to Rory. “Why ye been possessed? I thought the interrogators that was using demons against the prisoners.”
“That’s right. A demon can pick apart prisoner’s thoughts, tell ye what you need to know. We used them alongside the torture, to test the truth of any information the prisoner gave prior. It worked brilliantly. We were very thorough in our results.”
I glanced over his crooked, gangly arm. Must’ve been twice as long as it should. More even.
“What went wrong?” I asked.
“The demons were up to something,” Rory said. “We all sensed it.”
“How could ye tell?”
“The demons seemed too compliant. We were prepared to break them into helping. But never was it necessary. Instead they observed our interrogations. They studied us while we went to work with our whips and daggers and fiery tar.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The demons were learning from the torment.”
“What did the demons learn?”
Camda nudged me and nodded at stubble on Rory’s arm. The stubble was getting thicker. Rory clamped his hand over the patch. The hair pushed out through his fingers. Another clump of hair started on his nose. Another at his ear. The hair grew in wooly and rigid, like an animal’s.
Rory whimpered. “Oh no, it’s coming on again.”
Bones began to crack. I felt a nick at my leg and saw claws stretching and retracting from Rory’s toes.
Camda leaned over Rory, unsure what to do. “We have to help him.”
My grip tightened around my blade. I wanted to aid the man too, but wasn’t taking any chances.
Rory’s eyes darkened to big black circles, like the eyes of a rat. Or were they more like an abyss?
He started to wheeze. “Cover your eyes, turn away,” he groaned between coughs.
“Turn from him, Camda,” I shouted. I yanked the lass around by the shoulder.
Rory hacked. Then hacked harder. Fur balls flew from his mouth. They lobbed at me and I ducked. The lumps of hair slimed against the wall behind me and sizzled the stone.
“How can we stop this?” I asked.
Rory gnashed and twitched. He grumbled something incoherent.
“What do we do for you, Rory?” Camda asked.
“Kill me,” he yelled. “Please, by the gods, kill me!”
“That the only way?” Camda asked. “What about your family?”
I raised my blade. Then I felt it. The air changed. It became moist. A foul feral stink overpowered my senses. Rory’s jaw twisted wide and fangs cracked out over his teeth. His mouth moved but the voice wasn’t him. In his place, a dozen hoarse strangers roared.
“We know why you’re here, Nessa,” they cackled. “We know who you’ve come for. Night Flower.”
I stared, stunned.
Rory’s long arm shot at me. His claws caught me by the throat. The demons in Rory’s body rose up and pushed me down to my knees. I swung the blade. Its steel sung through the air and hacked through the long arm. Then I fell to my back as the hand kept clawing.
“Heart,” I grunted. “Stab.” The blade dropped from my fingers and rattled to the floor.
I tore at the hand with both of mine. I gurgled and choked.
Camda grabbed the blade and jabbed its point furiously at Rory. She screamed with rage. Rory’s blood splashed. His body crumpled to the floor. The severed hand’s claws retracted and I pried the hand from my throat and threw it to the wall.
Rory’s voice returned. He let out a death cry.
I rolled to my knees and leaned over him.
“Rory, I must find the interrogation records,” I said, hurried. “The waste men are riding for our realm. Quick, tell me where the records are.”
“Warden took all records to the lower reaches,” he uttered. “But forget them, I warn ye. Forget them and flee for the light … the abyss beneath ….”
“So there is an abyss,” I said. I thought back to the portrait.
“Is that the portal for the demons?” I asked.
“Much worse,” Rory mumbled. “It’s a … for the beast, a ….”
Rory croaked.
I grabbed him and shook. “Rory, tell me! Rory!”
He fell still, unmoving and lifeless.
I shook him again. I felt Camda touch my shoulder.
“He’s dead, Nessa.”
I threw down his corpse and punched the stone. “Gods, why couldn’t he spit it all out faster? The foul wretch!”
Camda gasped. “Show the man proper respect. He’s done his duty to the all fathers, best we know.”
She slid his lids down, over his eyes. Then wiped away a tear and said a prayer under her breath.
“His family would want him buried, with grains and meats for the journey to the other side.”
“Your heart’s soft, lass,” I said. “This man ate bugs. We’re not going to give him a grand sup and dig a grave. We need to hurry to the lower reaches.”
“Didn’t you hear what he said?” Camda asked. “We need to go back.”
I shook my head. “We go on.”
Camda stared me in the eyes. “What did the demons know about you that I don’t, Nessa? What’s the real reason you’re here?”
I took a moment. I looked down, in sadness.
“My lover died here,” I said finally. “Lyall. They said the prisoners attacked him. But the warden never sent the body home, and I never believed it.”
“I’m sorry, lordess.”
“I miss him and think of him constantly,” I confessed. “His face sears my thoughts. I sketched his portrait a hundred times. But the last time was different.”
“How so?” Camda asked.
I felt the depression heavy in my heart.
“Images inked into the canvas,” I said. “Right in front of me. Not by my hand.”
“Somebody drew on your portrait of Lyall?” Camda asked.
“Something,” I said.
“A demonic presence?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps. But I believe it was Lyall.”
“His ghost?”
“I don’t know.”
“What were the images?” Camda asked.
I turned my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Camda frowned. “There’s something dark about you. And it’s scary. You like it down here, don’t ye?”
“My father ordered me to this dungeon, to find the reports. It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. I’m here for a reason.”
Camda shook her head and snarled.
“Nearly a thousand souls manned this place,” she said. “Where are they now? This dungeon’s barren. Why? Have ye not thought to ask? Do you want to disappear too? Why won’t it happen to you? It’ll happen to us both, if we stay.”
I pressed close to her. “We had a deal. If ye leave, the realm’s finest horses will be tended by another.”
“No apprenticeship is worth turning out like Rory,” Camda said.
Her lips tightened into a flat line.
I nodded. “Very well.”
I reached into my satchel. “This torch is down to the hilt and burning weak. That leaves two. I’ll have mine. Ye the other.”
Camda took hers. “We’re a full torch’s walk from the light. Go any deeper, and ye won’t make it out with one.”
“That’s my problem,” I said.
Camda lit her torch and headed back. I kept going.
I worked my way down into the dungeon’s depths, where the inquisitors did their worst. Boiling and burning and hacking. Spiked booths, needle-laden chairs, limb-stretching cranks. The bull-shaped ovens for melting human flesh, stakes stained by flames and surrounded by ashy bones. I knew them all, creeping deeper, as the sadness in my ear whispered on. Then I came to the witchcraft and the depression turned to a scream. Candles and feathers and furs. Human hides tied into evil shapes, hanging low. Spines spiraled together into occult symbols.
My torch burned dim. The thought of feeling my way back began to wear on me. Then I heard the noise. It sounded like gnawing. Like a legion of animals gnawing into stone. I followed the noise to a new kind of room. Cages scattered the floor. Burnt baskets with straps lay over chairs. A skeleton sat upright in one, the basket bound to his chest. I knew of this type of torment. Interrogators placed rats in the baskets and heated them until the rodents chewed through the victim’s belly to escape.
I looked closer at the skeleton. Then I heard footsteps. A figure walked toward me and I recognized the face.
“Lyall!” I cried. “Please gods, let it be true. I never thought I’d see you again, my love.”
Lyall smiled. He didn’t walk fast, didn’t walk slow. Just walked.
I took a step toward him, then stopped. His skin hung gaunt and pale. His eyes hid beneath shadows.
“Lyall, are you alright?” I asked.
He stood away from me. “No need to be frightened.”
“Warden sent word of your death,” I said. “What happened? Did the prisoners hurt ye?”
“No.” Lyall shook his head. “I realized why the demons studied us so. Then they took me first.”
“Took you?” I whispered. “My love, what were they doing?”
“The demons learned from our torment of the prisoners. And discovered something they’d previously overlooked. A darker, inner nature. It lurks inside, my love. Even for you.”
“Tell me more, Lyall.”
“The demons channeled our inner nature to bring forth an abyss. An incarnation of the darkness within. A reflection of us all.”
“I’ve seen it before Lyall,” I said. “I drew a portrait of ye and the abyss bled into my canvas.”
Lyall laughed. “That’s just sketches, my love. Once you stare upon it here, you’ll feel the yoke of despair. And you won’t want to do anything else, ever again.”
I turned from him. “Lyall, I’ve come for the interrogation records. The waste savages ride for our realm. We need to get those records and leave.”
I heard a fizzle. My torch was burning its last.
I glanced toward the far wall. The gnawing scratched louder. Then I saw them. Forked paw prints scurrying across ash on the floor. The clawed toes stretched long as rats’, but I saw no animal. Only the tracks. One after the next, cutting through ash.
I curled my lip. I felt something brush my hair and jumped. I saw a lone rat tail hovering over the skeleton beside me. No body, no head, just the tail. I screeched back and saw more. Rat tails swaying over the baskets, floating along the floor, dangling above ledges in the rafters.
“What witchcraft is this, Lyall?” I shouted. “Are ye haunting me still? Why when we’re here together?”
Lyall leaned towards me. “Because I miss ye, Nessa. We talk, true. But ye haven’t kissed me yet.”
I still couldn’t see his eyes. I looked into their shadows and saw only darkness.
Lyall’s lips pressed mine. I kissed him. Then felt a bite. I pulled away. Blood’s taste soured my tongue. I looked into Lyall’s mouth.
Buck-teeth rat fangs snaggled from his lips. I screamed and spun away.
Lyall grabbed me by both wrists and yanked me to him. The gnawing on stone thundered from the far wall.
“Lyall, let me–” I started to say. I heard a crack.
Debris fell from the wall. A block from its heights thudded to the ground. Then another cleaved and crashed and broke to pieces. The gnawing became a fever pitch, and the wall boomed down upon itself. Dust and rock flew up.
But I saw their shapes through the murk. Piles of frail bodies, on a cliff ledge, staring into the depths. The bodies twitched and snaked and pushed over each other. I recognized faces among them. Inquisitors, prisoners, prostitutes. They all gazed deeply at something farther down.
Then the dust settled and I saw it. The abyss. Its darkness swirled.
Its empty glow swallowed my thoughts. Its nothingness drew me in. I barely felt Lyall’s grip loosen and let go of my wrists. He stepped away and I knew it was my chance to leave. But I lost the urge. My last torch lay on the ground. Its flame flickered and died. I cared not. I only gazed deeper into the abyss.
I sunk into its endless pit of sadness. Existence’s futility bore on my shoulders and I slumped under the weight. Days passed by. My hand’s skin shrank and cratered between the knuckles and tendons. My arms turned to scrawny bones. I wasted away consumed by utter despair and dwelled on nothing else – until Camda took my hand and pulled me back from the broken wall.
“Nessa, what’s come over you?” she asked. “You look like hell herself has hooks in ya.”
I blinked slowly. Camda looked greyer. Everything did.
“Can ye speak?” Camda asked.
I nodded slowly. “Don’t dare to look on the abyss, Camda. When it stares back, the sorrow will take ye.”
“Understood,” Camda said.
She led me by the arm. “Come with me. We must flee this place.”
I started to walk. Then dragged my feet and stopped. I felt the pull. The abyss clung to my heart.
Camda tugged at my hand. “We must make haste.”
“I can’t leave, Camda,” I said.
Camda reached in the breast of her coat. She rustled out a stack of papers.
“Do ye know what these are?” she asked. “The interrogation records. Have them all, I do. I found them looking for ye.”
“The records for my father,” I said, with awe in my voice. “To thwart the raiders’ attack.”
“Precisely,” Camda said.
She handed the papers to me and tugged at me again. “Let’s hurry.”
I walked with her. Camda’s torch lit the way. Our steps crunched over the ash and rubble. Camda crossed around chairs and their skeletons. I only followed. Then the wind whispered in my ear. Its powerful gusts were drawing dust and debris, back toward the abyss.
“Nessa,” a voice called from behind me. I knew it was Lyall.
“You can’t leave, Nessa,” he said. “You feel the depression through every pinch of your body. Its darkness will haunt you forever.”
I stopped walking.
“All that’s ever mattered is your sadness,” Lyall said. “You’ve always known that.”
Camda pulled at my fingers. “Don’t listen to his words. Don’t listen to the lies.”
I let go of Camda’s hand and walked to Lyall. I had found my distraction, my reason to go on. I put my palm over my chest, right across the interrogation records, their paper crinkling under my nails.
Lyall touched my cheek. “You’ve always been a Night Flower.”
“Not anymore,” I said.
I pushed Lyall into the wind. He flew up into a gust, reaching out for me, his hair flapping frantically. The wind blew him toward the abyss.
I watched as he hurtled closer. The beast emerged. It thrust out from the depths. I saw its dark tuffs of fur, its swirling eyes, its fangs cracking out over human-like teeth. Then the beast snatched Lyall. It tore him in two with enormous claws. Then ate the pieces.
Camda grabbed me and we kept moving. Headed out the darkness.
I still felt sad as I passed through the chambers. In a way I wasn’t surprised. Lyall had been partly right. Depression would always haunt me. I realized that while trekking the long halls. I hiked up stairs and covered my eyes from the first rays of light. I would forever be a Night Flower. Just not one huddled beneath the abyss.
Camda led me to the horses. Then I faced her.
“Ye could’ve been possessed,” I said. “Why did you come back?”
“For ye, lordess,” Camda said. “And for the realm, of course.”
I took her hand. “But I’m no nice girl.”
“Aye,” Camda said.
“I will speak to the stablemaster and have him prepare for ye.”
“Thank ye, lordess.”
“There’ll be fighting in the days ahead.”
Camda nodded. “I’ll wait.”
I kissed her.
“Very well then,” I said and looked to my horse.
“What about you?” Camda asked. “How do I know you’ll be safe?”
“You don’t,” I said.
Then I smirked. “But this should help.”
I reached into my coat and took out a balled fist. Darkness seeped between my fingers and an empty glow blurred my hand. It was a chunk of the abyss.
“A little treat,” I said, “I’ve brought back for the waste men.”