Shadows & Sorcery #43
Welcome to the forty-third edition of Shadows & Sorcery!
There’s a hell of a jumbo first tale awaiting you all this week - it technically doesn’t even count as flash fiction, but sure that’s never stopped me before. It’s free for all, so enjoy! If you free readers like what you see, there’s always more under the cut, just $2 a month (with a free trial) away.
Also, look forward to the second chapter of The Path of Poison coming soon, in which the action ramps up and stuff gets hard for our boy Sepp.
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In today’s edition we follow a wizard under the earth to do battle with Cavern Serpents, we put a stop to the workings of a vile Ritual Grave, we find safety from a grim world inside the Iron Sanctum, we learn just what’s lurking down in the Crypt of the Offering, and finally we take a trip to the crossroads kingdom and visit the Temple of the Spear…
Cavern Serpents
The mine went some thirty feet deep into the hillside. From the irregular main tunnel there snaked off several side paths following deposits of ore, and it was the final, and deepest branch that was the problem. The foreman led the way, a rough fellow whose skin was half sun-bronzed and half subterranean soot. He held a torch before him, and the wizard who followed kept a close eye on its health, as well as that of the wall-mounted torches that danced odd shadows across the uneven walls. But the flame made the crimson of his robes come to life, and made his silver-gold beard flash.
"Tell me, Mr. Vikkevka," said the red wizard Carloman, clacking his finely carved staff upon the earth at certain intervals.
"Just call me Gallin," came the grunted response without a turned head.
"Gallin, tell me. The cavern. When was it opened? And how long has it been open?"
"Three days. Work halted while we surveyed on the first day, lads went missing the second, took another day to get you here."
"That's good, that's good. You've kept the wall torches lit regularly, through the night? And around the camp?
"Aye, we got your pidgeon's note." The foreman's tone had more than a little impatience in it.
"Any knockers?"
"None, and that should'a told me all I needed to know."
"I see." Carloman didn't betray it, but the lack of mine-spirits bothered him.
They stood before a jagged tear in the stone. Wall supports stopped a short ways before it, but extra torches had been affixed on them at the wizard's request, and he now inspected them. The foreman stood by, uneasy.
"Look, can you tell me what exactly's going on here? What happened to my lads?" Carloman took a moment to think. He began to speak, but kept his eyes firmly on the black smear that was the cavern opening.
"You're probably more aware of this than most, Gallin, considering your profession. Places gone untouched by light for long spans of time, they...turn strange. When dark stagnates there's, ah, no better way to put this: things appear. Even the untouched corner of a city basement might be host to something that's come through a shadow. And the bowels of the world are filled with vast spaces that have never known the light of day. I think you get where I'm going with this."
"You're saying something's in there that took those boys?" he grabbed Carloman's arm. The wizard turned to him with a look that implied worse.
"This will be quick, foreman. And it will be brutal."
The foreman didn't even reply, but merely stamped ahead and thrust his torch into the dark. He looked back once at the wizard. Carloman smiled.
"I was hoping I wouldn't have to ask you to join me, sir."
There was no telling how vast the space was around them. For all they knew, it stretched into some far dark firmament beyond any healthy star-studded night. The wizard had more than half a notion that that was exactly what was happening. Yet for all its immensity, there was a close and oppressive sense to it that made the foreman, as rough a laborer as Carloman had ever seen in his long travels, shrink into himself. It hadn't taken long for the dark to strangle the torchlight. The flame didn't even illuminate either of them.
"Keep that torch above us."
"It's not exactly lighting much..."
"That's not what it's for." Carloman then slowed, and removed a small orange gem from some pocket, and breathed out a word that sounded, very oddly, thought the foreman, like fire onto it. It immediately flooded to life atop the wizard's staff. The torch seemed to regain some of its strength, and along with the gem, the foreman watched light creep over a ground that was not rock.
"I don't like this, wizard," the man's voice held a hint of panic.
"Do NOT show fear, Gallin Vikkevka, this is your mine. Your authority. I am your aid. Call out to your men. They answer to you here, and nothing else, you understand?" The foreman wasn't sure he did, but he obeyed.
"Hanas, Greya, Timur, get yer arses over here!" he called out with only a mild tremor in his voice. He was doing exceptionally well under the circumstances, thought the wizard.
There was a sound. Like something very large being dragged across bare earth. It caught them both by surprise. The foreman stopped calling out. He tentatively held his torch up higher. The light from it was strong, but didn't reach far - there wasn't much for it to fall upon anyway. But there was something amidst the inky expanse. A long thing which suddenly moved, curling downwards. Gallin stood almost transfixed, trying to get a grip on what he was seeing. It looked for all the world like a colossal serpent. As it came out of the murk, Carloman gave a shout.
"Back! Get BACK! BACK!" As he shoved his gem-topped staff at the thing, the foreman saw for the first time what manner of thing it was. It looked like a human face, not perfect, distended. There was a thin, skeletal nose, two pit-like eyes, and a low sloping forehead. Where there ought to be a mouth, however, there was long jagged rent and a jaw that was now opening up wider than the foreman thought anything like that ever should. He didn't think, but swung the torch into the side of its head. A cloud of black flaking ash burst from it as a sound somewhere between a hiss and the clanging of metal tore through the vastness.
"That's it! That's it!" Carloman thrust out his staff like a spear at the serpent, sending it flailing into the dark. It was far, far longer than either of them initially thought. Carloman strode ahead into the deep, calling out commands. "Don't let it escape! Call your men! Cast light upon it!" The foreman followed, shouting the names of the young men who had been under his watch. All of a sudden however, it was again upon them. Massive coils of it writhed of their own accord. The foreman had never seen such a look of hate upon such an inhuman face. There were no eyes in its pits, but he knew it stared right at him.
"Come on lads, to me - now!" he didn't know what he was expecting, but it felt right. Carloman was standing in front of him, waving his staff and its light like a barrier before the cavern serpent. It was making sounds, and the foreman didn't even dare to finish the thought, but he couldn't help but hear words in them. Amidst the confusion, he barely registered the shimmer he saw in the side of his vision. He meant to only glance at it, but his sight stuck there: around the torch flame, something more like a disturbance in the air than a real shape, seemed to huddle.
"Wizard?"
"You're doing well, foreman, I know what you're seeing, keep them near you - we must leave at once!"
More of those shimmers had appeared. Gallin guessed there were three.
They begun to retreat, and the serpent followed. It slunk and slithered around them, never able to bar them but striking out and meeting the wizard's mage-light at every turn. It wasn't going for the wizard, nor was it going for the foreman. It wanted the torch, and what lay huddled about it. Carloman sent out a hand with two outstretched fingers and intoned a spell as the cavern serpent retreated into the dark to spring forth:
"Righteous coils from healthy earth beyond, close about this sickened space!" the last word was bellowed as a great wind suddenly roared through the cavern and at the lunging serpent whose colossal jaws had almost found purchase around the wizard's head. It screamed, and the foreman had to do everything in his power not to drop the torch and clamp his hands over ears to block it out. A long whipping tail was thrown from the dark as it recoiled, hitting the wizard square in the chest and rattling each of the twenty charms around his neck. It sent him tumbling backwards and into Gallin. Throaty rasps danced around them in mockery.
Carloman threw a glance back only once. His eyes darted around them for a fraction of a second.
"Throw the torch, now, to the cavern entrance!" The words spilled out from the wizard's breathless mouth with unmasked terror. The foreman didn't question him. He spun about and with only one look, sent the torch in a wide arc towards the cavern maw. As the serpent lunged overhead in vile pursuit, Carloman took the end of his staff in both hands and let the light-bearing gem scrape along the form of the dark horror. Its agonized writhing tore the staff from Carloman's hands, but they could see the torch pass through the entrance - and along with it, the souls of the young men slain by the cavern serpent.
It crashed about on the ground. The tables had turned, and not a moment too soon. Carloman stumbled forth with a look of purest loathing upon his face in the dissipating murk. He held a hand up high and entwined his index and middle fingers in a gesture of binding, spoke each syllable of an arcane word of fire with extreme deliberation, and brought his entwined fingers down to point at the monster whose body was spewing blackness into the unnatural ground.
"Serpent's coils take thee."
Like a person blowing out a candle, there was an infinitesimal flash, and then nothing. An unseen weight was lifted from around them. All was quiet.
"Was that...?" gasped an exasperated Gallin who made the sign of the World Serpent over himself.
"Yes, it was, but be proud don't think you did just now, and don't think you didn't have a crucial part to play. I was glad to have your authority and connection to those young men here. It's most likely what saved them. You did more for them than most would. Or could."
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