#fantasy serial

Chapter 5: What the Body Remembers

The Umbral Tunnels

Ocrovos Gravemont awoke on a stone shore of darkness, bruised and sore but alive. He dragged in a deep breath and nearly choked it back out. The air was thick with a scent so saccharine that it was nearly putrid.

He pulled his legs from the flowing water and dragged himself up the slick, rocky floor. Something about the wetness of the stone was amiss, but he couldn’t see.

“Hello?” he called out into the darkness. “Lior? Ezekian?”

There was no reply.

He felt around himself and through the rushing flow of water for either pack—his or Lior’s. His hands brushed the soggy, bloated jute of a bag. He grabbed and pulled. The bag felt much heavier than it had before he fell.

Ocrovos felt around inside the bag and felt the smooth, spiked metal of the pitons, but no rope or hammer. He also found the one thing he was looking for: a wrought-iron tinderbox. He pulled it free and undid the latch, thankful for how securely it had been done. Still unable to see, he brushed the tips of his fingers across its dry contents to find the small, rectangular bar of flintstone and the short loop of firesteel. He withdrew them, latched the box shut, and slid it into his pocket.

Ocrovos struck the flint and steel together to create a brief spark. In the absolute darkness of the cave it was like watching an explosion. He blinked in surprise and squeezed his eyes shut, but even that short flare was enough to imprint an image in the darkness his mind was trying to make sense of.

The cave wasn’t slick from the water. It had been colonized by some kind of slime. The walls and floors were a sickly green, less like moss and more like mucus. He turned and struck the flint again. This time he saw the cavern narrow into a tunnel that stretched so far it seemed endless. Every inch of the tunnel was covered in so many layered strands of the slimy growth that no stone was visible underneath.

He held the steel out toward the shore of the subterranean river and struck it with the flint several more times. He focused all of his attention on locating his lantern in the brief moments of light. After a half-dozen attempts, he finally found it. But it was shattered and broken. He shuffled toward it anyway, stopping every few inches to strike the flint again. When he reached its remains, he felt over them to assess the damage.

The lantern’s glass was shattered, but the frame, reservoir, and wick remained intact. He moved farther from the water, opened his tinderbox, and found the waxed packet inside. Using its tinder and spare wick, he managed to make the lantern functional again. He lit it and the low flame came to life. He held the skeletal frame of the lantern out to search the cave shore, but there was nothing else besides the soaked jute bag with its pitons. He took a deep, steadying breath before he left them behind and turned to the only direction left to go: the tunnel.

Ocrovos walked for what felt like a while, but he had no way to tell the passage of time. He only knew that he was beginning to consider resting when a brief gust blew down the tunnel and snuffed out the lantern light.

He cursed and knelt to relight the lantern. When the fire came back to life, he was mere inches from a corpse. He flinched, wondering how he had missed it earlier. He held the lantern out to find the corpse had become one with the organic growth of the tunnel walls. The body was emaciated, its limbs frail and fingers skeletal. Its eye sockets gaped, empty and dry. Its skin, though mummified, seemed untouched by violence. Whoever it had once been sat here, willingly, and became part of the tunnel. Ocrovos stood and spun in a slow circle, checking the tunnel walls more closely.

There were dozens of corpses lined against the walls, each one part of the tunnel now.

Bodies were seated in careful, silent rows, stretching into the darkness. Some slumped forward, some sat upright, their hands resting in their laps as if in willing meditation. None bore wounds or marks of struggle. They had walked here, sat down, and let the stringy, dripping matter make them part of the tunnel itself.

His breath quickened and he felt adrenaline spike his nerves. How long had they been sitting here? A decade? A century? Whatever the answer, Ocrovos decided this was not the place to rest. He kept moving, his pace a little quicker than before.

But the further he went, the more he saw. There weren’t dozens of bodies, there were hundreds. He felt as if they were watching him, though they had no eyes with which to see.

The tunnel opened into a wider chamber and Ocrovos came to a stop. Panic tried to settle in as he waved the lantern around to see a cavern filled with even more corpses. But these corpses were fresher, still clearly dead but only by a few years or so. They also weren’t part of the walls or floor. They were seated haphazardly around the cavern, all cross-legged with hands folded in meditative patience.

Something large slithered through a tunnel above Ocrovos. He looked up, but the ceiling had no holes in it. When he looked forward again, his heart skipped a beat.

Had their heads always been turned toward him, or had that just happened? He hadn’t heard any movement, but every corpse in the room appeared to be staring at him, now.

Then he did hear them. The sound of bones creaking and slime shifting behind him. He spun to look and every corpse in the tunnel behind him was staring at him, too. A breathy wheeze came from his left. He turned to see the corpse closest to him angle its head up to look at him.

It was the freshest corpse he had seen; it could have been mistaken for someone alive and severely malnourished. Its crusted eyelids popped open one at a time to reveal milky white eyes beneath. And then it opened its mouth and spoke.

“Mother hurts,” it said through a weak whisper. “Mother needs . . . food.”

The corpses that looked most recently deceased began to stir. All around the cavern they began moving, reorienting themselves to stand.

“Stop!” Ocrovos commanded, his voice echoing down the cavern. “Stop, demons! In the name of the Unceasing and King Wendell himself, I command you.”

“The Lost King will never return,” one of the corpses breathed in a raspy voice.

“The Unceasing abandoned this world long ago,” another whispered.

A low rumble began to echo down the tunnel and through the cavern. The corpses finished pulling themselves to their feet and turned to face deeper into the tunnel.

One of them pointed a bony finger into the darkness. “Mother is here.”

Fear putrefied in Ocrovos’s gut and he took an unwilling, faltering step backwards. A sound filled the cavern like an uncooked sausage being squeezed from its casing. Then, from the darkness beyond, the bulk of a monstrous slug pulled itself into view. Its head was damaged and oozing blood that looked and smelled like liquid sulfur.

“Food,” a corpse murmured. “I am wounded. I am hungry.”

Ocrovos did not move. He had no illusions about winning a fight against or outrunning this thing—not in its own lair. But the corpses were speaking, and speech meant a semblance of reason. So he tried.

“Eating me will not heal your flesh, creature,” Ocrovos said. “If you are wounded then you need rest, not food.”

One of the corpses stepped in front of the massive monster and spoke. “We will not heal. Not from this wound.”

“You’re not just hurt, then?” Ocrovos asked. “You’re dying?”

The slug’s massive, glistening form shifted and its folds writhed like a mass of eels as the corpse spoke. “We are passing our life on to the new one. But the new life needs a new home. You will give yourself willingly.”

“I will do no such thing,” Ocrovos said. It took all of his willpower to keep a tremble from his voice and to stop himself from turning to flee.

“This is the will of your King,” the corpse said. “He buried us here to guard the Well for a century. But two have passed and he has not returned. So you will free us in his stead.”

“That’s too damned bad!” Ocrovos nearly shouted. “If I’m to die here, then we will both suffer.”

“What would make you willing?” the corpse asked.

“Nothing,” Ocrovos said. “All I desire is safe passage to the surface.”

“And you entered the depths of the earth to find the surface?” The corpse cocked its head. “You came here seeking something else. What is it?”

Ocrovos hesitated, but the scholar in him refused to stay silenced. This thing, whatever it was, could speak. It could bargain. “Power,” he admitted.

“With which to rule?”

“No. To find what was lost.”

The slug’s head rotated in one direction, then the other. It made a noise like it sniffed the air. The corpse took a step closer to Ocrovos. “Not a thing. A who.”

Ocrovos gritted his teeth. This thing was smarter than he was giving it credit for.

The slug’s head opened and it made a sound like tearing cartilage. Dozens of smaller, finger-sized slugs fell from its mouth and began writhing on the floor. Several of them climbed the corpse and slithered into its mouth before it spoke again. “Give yourself to me and I will give who you lost to you.”

That must have been how it was controlling the bodies here. Not as magic, but as a parasite.

“Not like that,” Ocrovos said, “not as a puppet. I want her as she was.”

“No,” the corpse whispered, “not like that at all. I offer you the power you seek. The power to raise her by your own hand. You may leave my children here to starve and to rot. I ask only that you be a home for the Once-And-Future-Queen.”

Ocrovos let out a single, bitter laugh. “I see you control the bodies of the dead. I know you would control the living just the same.”

There was a short moment of silence before the corpse spoke again. “And a bargain can be made in favor of she who is patient—the Once-And-Future-Queen. Be not a home, be a protector. Bring her current home to the surface and she will teach you what you wish to know.”

From the darkness beyond the lantern came another corpse, or at least someone dead enough to be mistaken for one. This body, however, was one Ocrovos recognized. It was a man burdened with broken wings and patches of iron where skin should be. It was the butcher of the Trade War: Mordane, the Black Vulture.

“This one is she,” Mordane said. His voice was weak and creaking, like an elderly man. “This one will die without her. Allow this one to lead you to the surface. She will teach you what you wish to know and find a new home. One that is not you.”

“Why not just go?” Ocrovos asked.

“This one is too frail to defend itself, and this one is the strongest she has.” The gargantuan slug moved itself closer to Mordane, close enough to defend him. “The Once-And-Future-Queen is within this one. Should she perish, so too will the rest of us.”

“But you must have hundreds of moving corpses here, not to mention your large friend there.”

“Look at them,” Mordane said. Ocrovos looked at the corpses. The ones that were standing were waving back and forth, struggling to keep their balance. Their thin legs looked like they would snap under the meager weight of simple leather armor. “They would fall to any man brave enough to brandish a mere stick against us. And the Spawn-Bearer cannot tolerate the light of day. Besides, your friends have mortally wounded it. It will no longer last.”

“And you would trust me so willingly? That is reason enough for me not to trust in you.”

“No,” Mordane said. “She does not trust you. Yours is a people whose very name evokes lies and betrayal. Even the two who brought you here betrayed you. Did you know they found what you seek?”

Ocrovos felt his fingers twitch. “They found the King’s Well?”

“And now they are Crownwardens,” Mordane said.

“Take me to the Well,” Ocrovos said. “Then I will make sure no harm comes to you before you reach the surface.”

“With your power in hand you will surely slay her,” Mordane said.

No, he couldn’t leave without what he came here for. Even if it meant his death, Ocrovos refused to come this close to a source of power that could let him see her again, even if only one more time, and simply walk away from it.

“Then we both die here,” Ocrovos said.

Mordane slowly shook his head. “Only you. You will struggle against her until you starve. When you are weak, when your body is empty, she will leave here within it. She is offering you a better way.”

“What better way?” Ocrovos asked. “Slavery under the control of your . . . your plague?”

“The Well chooses your gift,” Mordane said. “This plague can teach you exactly what you wish to know.”

“How?”

Mordane motioned to all the corpses in the room. “She holds the knowledge of all homes, from all time. She holds secrets from the Age of Myth. She knows forbidden magic.”

The realization dawned on Ocrovos. When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet. “You know the secrets of Necromancy.”

“Yes,” Mordane said. “Protect this one until it reaches the surface. She will teach you what you wish to know, then she will flee under cover of night. Accept this offer, or stay here and die.”

Ocrovos looked over Mordane’s shoulder to the dying creature behind him. Ocrovos had no weapons, no idea where the Well was, and no path back to the surface. Refusing would not preserve his dignity. It would only ensure he died here while the parasite took what it wanted from his corpse afterward. At least this bargain offered knowledge, escape, and a chance to confront Lior and Ezekian for taking the power he had spent years searching for.

Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps this plague would lead him deeper into the tunnels and feed him to something worse. But there was no safer choice waiting to be discovered.

Ocrovos sighed. “Then let us speak of terms before we strike a deal.”

#

Lior had been guiding Zeke through the tunnels for a long time when he heard the sound of stone grinding against stone. He spun toward the sound, holding out their one pathetically small lantern. He expected to see the giant slug again, but what emerged from the darkness was the malformed silhouette of a person. It was too wide and too tall. But it was shuffling toward them, so Lior drew his sword. Color and features bled across the silhouette as it stepped into the feeble light of the lantern.

It was Mordane, the Black Vulture. And two steps behind him—

“Monty!” Zeke said. “Thank the Unceasing, you’re alive!”

Zeke took two steps forward, but Lior reached out to hold him back. He pointed at Mordane and asked Monty, “Is he a threat?”

Mordane’s flesh, once said to be made of iron, had softened in large patches. His bones had been broken at some point, and had since healed incorrectly. One wing was extended, caked in grime and at an angle that suggested its breaking had never mended at all. The other was dragging behind him, a featherless framework of leathery skin dotted with tears and rips. His skin was ashen and stretched thin over sharp bones. One eye was a blind, milky void; the other held the dying embers of a hatred that had once sustained him.

“Does he look like a threat?” Monty asked.

Lior didn’t answer, but he kept his sword at the ready.

“We thought you died,” Zeke said. “How did you survive?”

“An excellent question,” Monty said. “One I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to. I also thought I had perished, but I awoke next to a tunnel and found Mordane wandering inside.”

“How convenient,” Lior said.

Monty’s face darkened and his voice grew an edge. “Are you suggesting that my near death was somehow engineered, that I conspired to find Mordane down here, and that we came looking for you all because I had some scheme planned? What could I possibly gain from that? All I wanted was the Well. How does any of this satisfy that end?”

Zeke took a step forward and opened his mouth. Lior reached out to stop him, but he wasn’t fast enough and the words left Zeke’s mouth. “We found it!”

Lior closed his eyes and stifled a sigh.

“Oh?” Monty said. “Did you, now? Then where is it? Take me there so you can fulfill your part of the bargain.”

Mordane moved and Lior tightened his stance in preparation for a fight. But Mordane had only turned to Monty to give him a disapproving look. Monty held up a hand to Mordane in a signal for him to wait.

“We never claimed we would take you there,” Lior said. “We offered to protect you. Yes, the Well is real, but we cannot simply allow anyone to go and take its power. That is a gift which is only ever supposed to be granted by King Wendell or the Crownwardens.”

“So you took no power of your own?” Monty asked.

For a brief moment, Lior considered lying to Monty. But he could see something in the man’s intelligent, scholarly eyes. Monty already knew the answer and there was no reason to keep it from him. “Not by choice.”

The mockery and darkness in Monty’s tone was barely constrained as he said, “How convenient.”

“You think these gifts come without consequence?” Lior asked. “I haven’t the first idea of how Duke Veylan will act when he learns of this.”

Zeke’s voice was small, quiet, and very afraid when he spoke. “We’re telling him?”

“What else are we supposed to do?” Lior asked Zeke. “If we hide it from him, whatever consequences there may be will only get worse.”

“The boy is right to be afraid,” Monty said. “If I were one of only three Crownwardens, I might consider a new one to be a threat.”

“Quiet!” Lior demanded. “Do not even think to put such ideas in his head.” He turned to Zeke and said, “What do you fear? That he would execute us? You already believe yourself incapable of death.”

“I haven’t known him as long as you have,” Zeke said. “And I don’t know him as well as you do. But I know the Iron Hawk well enough that I’m not expecting him to be pleased about this.” Zeke reached out a hand and laid it on Lior’s arm, the one still brandishing his sword at Mordane. “Lior, I trust you because I’ve known you to have a good heart. But sometimes that can be a curse. I know you want to believe that the Duke will do right by us. But you’re the only one here who still holds that hope.”

“We can worry about this later,” Lior snapped. Disappointment spread across Zeke’s face, but he withdrew his hand from Lior’s arm and nodded. “For now, we need to find a way to the surface and figure out how Mordane still lives.” He pointed to the Black Vulture, who looked more dead than alive. “Tell us, how is it that Duke Veylan sensed your death, then rebirth? What is it that keeps you upright?”

“I know not,” Mordane said. His voice creaked and wheezed as he spoke. He sounded like he was still dead and only speaking by some unholy means. Lior might have even guessed Necromancy, if it weren’t for the lack of living people in these caves. Except, of course, the mysterious Lycea scholar who had disappeared for a time . . .

“Mordane knows the way,” Monty said. “Why don’t you lead us to the Well first? Then we can all leave.”

Frustration was boiling in Lior’s gut, but he tried to hold it back while they were still stuck in these damned caves with no way out. “You will not see the Well on this day,” Lior said to Monty. “I will not tell you again.”

Mordane shuffled next to Monty and whispered something to him that Lior couldn’t hear.

“Fine,” Monty said. “I abandon the Well. We make for Ironcliff and part ways at Merchant’s Rest.”

That didn’t feel right.

“Why the sudden change of heart?” Lior asked.

Monty shrugged and said, “He merely suggested none of this would matter if we didn’t make it to the surface.”

Lior knew the scholar was scheming. But what was he supposed to do in response? Change his mind, fetch the Well, and give the King’s gift to yet another person who hadn’t earned it? Lior still wasn’t even comfortable knowing he and Zeke had them.

“Fair enough,” Lior said, the words slow and cautious. “I’m not comfortable staying this close to the Umbral Tunnels. When we reach the surface, we’ll pack up and head north. We can spend the night at Unceasing’s Oath, where sleep should come more easily—away from these accursed tunnels.”