The skeletons are motionless as he passes between them and enters the shrine. Their cold and burning eyes stare out in to the wastelands.
Two of the arcane natives wait in side. The ir oily black bodies are so dark it’s almost impossible for him to make them out in the thick shadows.
They a re folded in contorted prayer. Their fing ers end in steaming frost claws and their eyes shine like frozen moons.
The rest of the shrin e is an endless void. E ntering is like s tep ping in to an icy pool.
He quietly sets his blade on the ground, kneels low, and spread s his hands. Information plac ed in to his mind by the Eidolos makes him understand this is needed to earn their trust.
They were once captives of the Whisperlands, just like he is, but they’ ve evolved. Decades spent in that fugue has destroyed whatever they once were. They are necrosis beings, more shadow than living.
And they, too, have reason to oppose the Shadow Lords.
They regard him suspiciously. He doesn’t understand what might be going through their alien minds, but he feels the darkness push against him.
They gaze into his shadow-drenched soul. He’ s forgotten so much about himself he i sn ’ t sure what they ’ ll find.
His body shakes. H e’ s afraid, but he knows this is necessary. He ’ ll endure anything if it will help him escape this prison, this quagmire in the endless dark.
They’ re closer now. He didn’t see the m approach. The ir bodies are featureless except for narrow slits for eyes and the barely discernible outlines of grim faces. They stand shoulder to shoulder and look at him, look inside him. Their touch is as cold as death.
H e’ s on his knees. He prays with them, only it isn’t prayer, not tru ly, for there are no g ods t here, no deities except for the soot angels, twisted succubi whose likenesses are cast upon a slab of stone: a mongrel avatar, an orgy of dark seraphim twisted together in a violent erotic dance. Claws and teeth and bat’s wings fuse together. T he trio of wom e n is locked in a tangle of shadow s.
He’ s seen this before, in history texts and drawings. It was in the church where Dane Knight performed the sacrific e that created human magic. There had never been any reports of the triple-succubus likeness having been seen anywhere else.
The statue bleeds darkness, a different dark ness than the air in th e Whisperlands. Theirs is an ancient and primal power. It fuels the mad arcane natives, tho se aboriginal marauders. They pay homage to the core of demonic flesh.
He looks i nto its gruesome multiple faces and sees a force that has beheld ages. It is not of his world, or perhaps of any world. It bears a purpose. It searches.
We search, one of the natives tells him. The words echo through his mind and repeat, layers of sound filter ed over one another, a resonant and whispered meaning. We hunt.
What do you search for? h e asks, but there is no answer. It occurs to him they might not even know.
He stares back at that twisted triple angel, that masochistic altar of vampire pain. He is dwarfed by its presence. G lacial smoke billow s from between its curved fangs and its molten seductive smiles. He breathes it in, and it soils his soul.
They walk through fields cleared of trees, over ground packed with clay and low mounds of rock and bone. He doesn’t remember leaving the shrine.
The two natives are with him. He doesn’t know their names, isn’t sure if they even recall the concept of names. Both wear primitive battle dress, armor made from the carapaces of shadow insects and bladed gauntlets carved from bone and steel. O ne wears a helmet made from some sort of longhorn’s skull, and t he other wields a tall staff adorned with dark skins and sharp edge s.
He’ s safe with them. They search, either for something in the Shadow Lord’s possession or something else that is located near their stronghold, the Black Citadel. The Citadel lies near a place called the City of Thorns, where these shadow beings are taking him. They believe he can help them somehow.
H e has become a part of some sort of shadow rebellion. H e is allied with the se shadow people, who search for the means to oust their oppressors. He has been caught up in the politics of the damned.
We can be more.
They walk through shadow- soul fields and past towers of crumbling iron. The patchwork landscape is a conglomeration of detritus sucked in from other worlds and drenched in darkness.
Flames send pale smoke into the sky. The fires form spot s of light in the perpetual dark.
The y pass the burned homes of shadow villages, haphazard settlements littered with the corroded remains of dust corpses. He smells cooked meat and vehicle fuel. Ashen remains drift in the air and land on his tongue.
If his escorts feel any sorrow for the carnage they witness, he can’t see it. Their grim visages remain unchanged, caricatures of human faces.
We search, one of the natives says. It ’ s been some time since they spoke. Their voices are utterly foreign and false, as if spoken by an automaton, but there is a soul buried somewhere deep inside, some semblance of the creatures they once were.
The details of his f ormer life gro w hazier by the day. They are more like dr eams now than memories, distant and hard to recollect. He holds on to j ust a few vivid details, and with every step more of th em fade away.
What do you search for? h e asks.
The stone, they say. The stone, and the door.
He fears that’ s supposed to make sense to him. It doesn’t, at least not in this world, or in this life.
O thers join them, natives with skin so dark they resemble walking carbon silhouettes.
There are only a few of them at first. A ll of them are attired like his two escorts, who he’s come to call Bull-Horns and Longspear. The new arrivals also wear battle-dress, and each of them maintains at least one article of armor or weaponry or clothing that sets them apart from the others. One yields a bone-white ceramic sword; another wears a steel helmet with no eye- slits; one holds a crescent axe in each hand; and yet another carries a dented iron shield with a skull emblazoned on its face. He doesn’t know if they do this for his sake, or for their own.
Soon they are a dozen, then two dozen. They march across the Whisperlands in near silence. The black wind comes, hard and cold and filled with particles of sharp dust. The air smell s of toxins and industrial waste. Blood smoke fills the sky.
Th e y march through barren fields, towards a fast-flowing black river. W reckage and war waste litters the path. The y see the s moking husks of burning homes and the opened c orpses of elephantine beasts. The e arth has been broken apart by cannon fire, and the fields are covered with poison fumes so dense they will never dissipate. There are d eep trenches where bone crafts fe ll from the sky. P iles of black corpses have nearly moldered to dust, and f lecks of collapsing bodies pull away in the wind.
We search, Bull-Horns says again, and all he can do is nod. His body aches with fatigue, his legs are weary, and worry gnaws at his gut. We search.
I know.
They come to the dark river. Bony refuse floats on the surface, and h e sees the outlines of beasts swim ming below. The river stands between the m and the base of a wide path that cuts its way through an imposing onyx cliff several hundred feet high. The path is difficult to see in the darkness, but it’ s been marked with the pale bones of massive creatures.
The shadow soldiers prepare for battle. They move towards a wide platform made of wood and steel, a c raft hooked to a thick chain that stretches across the river and is attached to pillars of cold iron on the opposing shores. Arcane r unes and sigils cover the chain and the barge. The vessel isn’ t large enough for even half of the shadow warriors.
They’re not coming.
After a moment, he understands why.
The Shadow Lords haven’ t left the entrance to their inner realm unguarded. Dark fliers take shape in the sky, human bats and draconic beings, things without form, nightmare avians. More shapes approach on the ground, humanoids that look like the arcane natives, only these enemy creatures wear human skins and ride bastard conveyances of living flesh and shadow matter, dark iron armor grafted to unstable reptile skin. The small legion appears from nowhere and moves with startling speed.
The black air comes alive. He doesn’t even see the battle begin. B odies fly into one another, shadow vapors and steel. The combatants are voiceless in their conflict. Metal explodes against metal and bodies explode like sacks of gel. Razor-white blades shear away limbs. Dark blood smears across the ground.
He watches in horror, but he’ s held back and hedged towards the barge. His allies restrain him, and they prevent him from tak ing part in the strife. Shadow limbs push and shove him along. His vision goes dizzy as he ’ s forced forward.
Fliers descend. They fall in an aerial wave. They fill the crimson sky with the sound of beating wings.
Blood rains down. The sound of ripping fill s his head. There are no shouts or screams, but he hears bodies torn apart in the razor storm. The ground gr ows thick with ruined corpses.
He stumbles, dizzy, his blade held ready. T he swarm of fliers launches down, and h is allies push him to the ground.
Blood pounds in his ears. His body aches. Dark fluid burns his eyes. Stone grates against his knees. Something hauls him to his feet.
White m issiles explode in mid-air and fan out like webs of steel rain. Behemoth hooves stamp s hadow corpses into paste. He swims through a sea of sand and blood.
Bodies fall into the water, where t hey’ re consumed by the ripping tides. B one fish and serpent limbs drag them under.
He can’t tell the combatants apart in all of the chaos. He swings at whatever come s close and threaten s him. He hopes he isn’t hurting his allies.
He’ s on the barge. He barely re member s getting there.
Bull-Horns and Longspear are with him. T hey toss the dark mooring rope ashore and push the heavy vehicle into the waters. The chain guides them across.
A feeding frenzy takes plac e just beyond their feet. Moon- pale fish with black eyes and knife teeth chew their way through dark bodies. Corpses come apart and drift like putty to the surface. Black water splashes on to his face.
An explosion shakes the barge, and he falls. Fliers descend, but they ’ re forced away by Bull-Horns and Longspear. He joins them in battle. His blade carves through shadow flesh and spills silver blood that s izzles o n the deck. Ozone and acid fill his nostrils. His arms grow sore as he saws back and forth and cuts through relentless waves of misshapen bat-like creatures with human faces and long prehensile tails capped with quivering hooks. He sees eyes, deep and cold and black, shards of ice encased in dark flesh.
His arm is wounded. He bleeds shadow bile that freezes against his sk in. Pain blazes from the cut. His skin is overtaken with cold.
Bull-Horns is ripped from the vessel and thrown into the water. The body thrashes before it’ s snapped up in the jaws of an oil-skinned marauder, a shark-creature with a pulsating orifice mouth. Bull-Horns vanishes underwater.
He fights on, one-handed. Longspear stands next to him. B lasts of cannon fire issue from the shore behind them, some crude artillery. Gargoyle bodies explode and scatter like clumps of wet sand.
The black warriors struggle on. It’s all but impossible to tell which side has the upper hand.
Deep cold gnaws at his bones. He feels a chill so utter it makes his shadow-stain ed flesh burn. His head pounds. The glacial air makes his body shake.
A twisted presence worms its way through his veins, some poison from his wound. Soulrazor/Avenger wills the corruptive toxin out of his body, but his flesh pays the price. He isn’t even aware of his own screams until the sound of them hurts his ears.
The barge lands on the far shore. Lon gspear pulls him to the bottom of the steep slope that leads up into the canyon wall. The bone addled path ascends into a veil of fog. A ncient fossil s and hieroglyph s lie embedded in the high stone walls.
When he turns, the barge is back in the river, headed towards the far shore. Longspear is on board, returning to his comrades, not wish ing for them to die alone.
Cross watches them fight. He knows they won’t survive. The faith they must have in the Eidolos — in him — is baffling. They know nothing about him, and yet they s acrifice themselves, for t hey feel he can bring the Shadow Lord’s reign to a certain end.
They have nothing to lose. They want things to change, and they think I can help bring i t about.
S kinwings fold their bodies around ebon warriors. E nem ies run each other through with saw- bone blades. M utated mounts trample foes into the ground. Skirmishers are skewered on spears and dragged howling into the waters, where they are consumed by aquatic terrors.
The fliers keep coming. More of the Shadow Lord’s minions storm in from the west.
They’ ve forgotten him. Even if the battle had once been about his getting across the river, it isn’t any more. They a re lost to the ir bloodlust and carnage.
He turn s away and climbs the path.
His arm throbs with pain. Hurt burns through his body e very time he tries to lift the damaged limb. He walks like he’s made of glass, and fears he has some sort of fever.
H e makes his way up the narrow path with his blade in his good hand. The rock looks recently shorn: t he remains of civilizations have been entombed in the black and crusty stone.
Dark shapes slither up and down the walls. K nots of tension run through his back. He slowly regain s feeling in his arm.
His legs are tired. Soot y sweat leaks from his skin. His armor coat feel s heavy, and though he no longer needs sleep he briefly re members what it feels like, and he longs for it.
Molten faces snarl and melt around him. He reaches the top of the path, and finds himself on a shallow trail filled with bone and gravel. D ark trees stand vigil like lost men. The valley and the river below seem like they’ re miles away. B lack mist rolls over his feet, like he ’ s stepped into an ink stain. D ark trees surround him, fused together by smoke and fog.
There are riders in the forest, vague silhouettes darker than the shadow-thick sky, gaunt figures who wear dangling fetishes and chains. They have long clawed limbs and curved weapons, hooks and hammers and double-swords, claw-handles and barbed shields. A dozen of the creatures file out of the darkness on sinuous mounts made of blades.
Part of him wonders how he could be so stupid. The emissaries of the Shadow Lords would never leave the entrance to their inner realm unprotected. These are hunters, and they’ve been sent to destroy him.
He doesn’t hesitate. He ignores his pain and moves fast and low into the forest. He knows that he has no chance i f he stands and fights, but t here’ s little room for the riders to navigate in the thick of the trees, and he can use that to his advantage. The iron oak s glow like slivers of the moon, unnaturally bright for the shadow re alm.
He is close to the Black Citadel. Things are more solid, more real.
The rider’s gangly weapons sweep low to the ground and stir dead leaves. Their mount ’ s eyes shine silver.
He bends around the trees and dodges a long blade. Sparks fly as steel strikes the forest, like the trees themselves are made of iron. He brings Soulrazor/Avenger up and cleaves through b lack armor flesh, metal fused to tissue. The blade hisses as he buries it in to the rider’s face. The creature makes a high-pitched draconian sound that reminds him of boiling lobster.
Another rider comes at him. He dodges back, uses the cobalt trees for cover.
His heart pounds. He hears the dissonant whinnies of primordial steeds that smell of carbon and fused metal. The air is deathly cold. E very breath freezes and falls.
The rider swings at him, but he deflects the blow with his double-blade. His arm reels from the impact as t he force of the attack drives him to the ground. The creature and its mount rear up, one a part of the other, a centaur made of shadows. The mount’s hoof ed feet kick at the air.
The blade gives him strength. Harlequin power surge s through him, a bastard fusion of diametric energies. His attack sears throu gh the mount and into the rider, and tears them both apart. They explode in a b rittle cloud of dust glass that rains like pellets to the forest floor.
White h ands erupt out of the ground, and they reach up and grab him. The other riders charge through the trees. D esperate, he cleaves through the clawing ice limbs. Pale blood sprays on to the black earth.
He flees deeper into the forest.
We search.
He runs for hours. Hooves thunder behind him.
He can’t stop. Blood pounds in his ears. He waits to be crushed by a blow to the back. His legs ache with fatigue. He runs through a forest covered in frost smoke and made dense with darkness. Trees like slivers of ice cage him in.
The riders cease their pursuit. He isn’t sure how long it has been since he’s lost them. He slows, and walks deeper into trees turned blue with frost.
The sky is different. The normally dank illumination that suffuses the Whisperlands fade s to a frozen lunar shine that makes everything ghostl y. The shadows recede. He see s the stark detail s of the bone trees and the scarred terrain. Skeletons sit in piles of frozen leaves and seem to stare at him.
Time is slower, like the air has thickened.
He struggles against the cold. Every crunching leaf echoes like breaking glass. The air tastes of forest rot and burning ice.
There are fires in the distance. He moves ahead cautious ly. Soulrazor/Avenger feels heavy in his hand.
The trees grow taller as he nears the gates of a grim city. The settlement is made of fortified wood held together by iron sap. Thin streams of milky water run in a perimeter around the forest outpost. Tall arrow slits reveal grim shadow faces with pale eyes. B ows are aimed at him, and he senses the presence of a mage’s spirit. The creatures are vaguely reptilian.
What is your business here? He hears the question, but when he tri es to answer they’ re all gone. Only the dead forest city remains. The water has turned to dust. The gates lie shattered.
There are no creatures there, living or dead. He finds crushed wagons and open homes, abandoned watch posts and weapons long unused.
His feet shuffle in frozen dirt. Open doorways look like hollow eyes. He feels like he’ s being watched, even though he knows he’ s alone. Nothing living has dwel l ed with in those walls for a very long time.
We search.
He knows this City of Thorns is where the arcane natives came from. This was their home, when they ’d had a home. This place i s stranded, exiled in t he Whisperlands just as Earth is stranded in the world After The Black.
He wonders why they left. He feels he should be afraid, but he isn’t.
He w a nders from house to house. The small wood en structures are bereft of furnishings. I ce and dust cover everything. Glitters of frozen crystal litter the ground like fallen stars.
There is a well at t he center of the city. Its broken stone wall surrounds a shaft that runs deep into the frozen sludge. There are bones at the bottom, frozen white shards of once-humans that glitter in the pale air.
He moves on.
The west end of the City is a small shrine, similar in many ways to the place where he’d first met the natives, the building where they ’d worshipped the triple-succubus deity. The build ing is sinuous and curved. It’ s an almost organic thing made of cold wood and black iron. Frozen glass covers the temple ’s face.
The gaping doorway seems to stretch wider as he approaches. He senses a cold presence inside, but he is be yond fear. He will keep moving and earn his escape, or e lse he will die. He is tired of walking with no purpose.
The air in the sh r ine is warmer than outside. The pale light won’ t penetrate the gloomy interior.
A black corpse waits in the shrine. The ebon warrior kneels in penitence, petrified in reams of ice. Its dead eyes are cast to the ground, and its arms are frozen forward. Its hands grasp at something it will never hold.
He steps closer, and his eyes follow to where the corpse’s fingers point at something buried beneath the frost on the wall.
We search.
He looks upon that frozen figure and understands. They’d left that place, their home, to find a way to escape the Whisperlands, but something kept them from ever returning.
They forgot what they were… who they were. They went off to find a way out, but once they left this city they forgot what they were looking for. T he Whisperlands corrupted the ir minds before they could complete their quest, and now that this place is dead they can never gain that knowledge back.
But they still remember that they search. T hey remember that they came from the City of Thorns, even if they can’t recall what they ’d left to search for, or why.
Maybe that’s why I’m here, he wonder s. Maybe t hey need me to finish the search for them. To find wha t they couldn’ t.
H e turns away from the corpse and wipes the ice from the stone. W hat he sees there chills his heart.
Suddenly, he knows what he must do. He knows w hy it ’ s so important for him to escape that dread realm.
I just hope I’m not too late.