Shadows & Sorcery #81
And we’re back, for the eighty-first edition of what they say is called Shadows & Sorcery!
I did something odd this week. To be blunt, a story ended up at nearly 3000 words. That aint flash fiction. That is a whole ass short story. Yes I’ve posted some chunky tales here before, but frankly I find this unacceptable!
So this week you’re getting a hefty dose of action in the Demiurge world with a two-part adventure. Not because I’m a hack but because I realized it worked better split up, two titles focusing on two different aspects of the same story. And then there’s something a little weird and experimental afterwards, inspired by a very strange, very compelling, and utterly unique novella/guide/artbook I’ve been reading called Vermis, by an online artist who goes by the name Plastiboo. If you can get a hold of this book from the publisher Hollow Press, do it, I cannot recommend this book enough, it’s grim, dark, melancholy, unsettling, and gorgeous to look at.
And remember! You can now actually properly purchase premium subs and access all 300 season 1 tales, plus all the nonsense I have in store for the future! You even get a 7-day trial before you pay, it’s a goddamn bargain lemme tell you, you won’t find this many wizards and dark gods or whatever else I write about anywhere else!
But now onto this week’s stories, and hey, if you enjoyed what you read here, give that little heart icon a quick tap and tell the stories you liked them!
This week, in part one of our adventure, the paladin Casimir enlists a thief to help him seek out the Serpent Shrine, and in part two, our adventurers meet in the Dark with the Serpent of Old, and finally we traverse the strange halls of the Tower of Echoes…
Serpent Shrine
Due to its metropolitan status and status as a center of trade, Baletor, the mountain city known as the "crossroads kingdom", is a land of many faiths. Above all, of course, is the esoteric god of the mountain itself, Oros, of the thousand aspects, some so obscure they may as well constitute separate religions. Of the other city-states, the sky faith of Mul Manatar is present, as are even a couple of Hero cults from distant Minosmir. The Paladins of Imaal were founded in Baletor, and have become a highly esteemed order of guardians across the known world. Even the World Serpent of the west found purchase in Baletor when the Princes and their people fled east in the great Exile many centuries ago. Due to the city's shared Voerlunder-Baletorian heritage, the Serpent finds reverence here.
The Paladin Casimir strode through the cool, shadow-shrouded backstreets of lower Baletor. His sandals made nary a pad upon the aged flagstone, his darkish, clay-red skin and charcoal hair were half-hid in the shade of the high, teetering walls, but his eyes blazed gold. He gripped his short-handled mallet hammer and buckler tightly, thinking upon things of faith, of all the gods and forces which converged upon this sprawl; gods known, gods yet to be known, and gods better left unknown. Behind him slunk a shape in black, face half-masked, hunched. A thief.
To find a new kind of shrine you've never seen before wasn't an uncommon occurrence in the city. Casimir had himself seen dozens of new ways people found to venerate the god of the mountain, some derivative, some very experimental. But they were free to do so, within reason. Sometimes small Oros sects got a little zealous, believing that they stumbled across some secret truth or ancient rite. Maybe a couple of them did, but they were the kind that didn't deserve to live again in the minds of men. So, he'd seen his fair share of religious oddities. But he thought back on what he'd seen in that house. It had been something more than a new Oros sect or ancestor cult. It had been something different. Something evil. And though its form was new, what it represented was known to him.
As a Paladin of Imaal, Casimir was beholden not just to law and order, but to learning and applied wisdom. He did not believe in peace, but he strove for it. And to do so, in such a spiritually fractious city, he researched the faiths of his neighbours. He knew of rites and festivals, holy words and symbols, and he knew of blasphemies and sacrilege. And the thing hidden away in the false wall of the shack, before the defiled corpses of the priests, was the very image of desecration. It had made him profoundly uneasy. It looked for all the world like the World Serpent, but crafted as if in mockery. In Voerlund, the Serpent is a distant but ever watchful guardian, and in Silverden it is an all-pervasive ordering force—such ideas had made the god quite palatable to him, and he took care to learn of them.
But the thing he looked at was an inversion of those ideals. A blind, feeble form cast down into the dirt, its order undone, its coils loosened and crushed. No words could describe the minute details that spoke to not just the hate wrought in this icon of chaos, harm, and domination, but the fact that whoever made this idol of detestation knew exactly what they were doing.
The hidden shrine had only been uncovered because Casimir had been apprehending a thief whose reputation was beginning to precede him, and there had been a scuffle in the old quarter between paladin and brigand, and the wall had come loose in the chase, and upon the discovery of the grisly scene. Casimir had offered the thief two choices: get beaten and dragged to a dome for judgement, or perform a penance and aid the paladin in snuffing out this den of blasphemy. What had been seen shook the thief...but he also knew better than to anger one who bore the Sign of the Hammer, the wrathful and fearsome aspect of Imaal. Had it only been a Spear of Mercy walking these streets, the thief lamented silently.
As it happens, the thief had indeed seen and heard odd things in the vicinity lately. He hadn't thought anything of it—Baletor was a strange enough city at the best of times, was it not? Aye, the paladin certainly agreed to that. But it was persistent, and some of it, though he couldn't really say why exactly, made some very deep part of him uncomfortable. He had seen dark figures, hooded and shrouded, passing in the night, slinking through streets, figures he reckons seemed somehow out of place. He assumed illicit meetings with people from the upper city, but he would have caught wind of such things, if they were of thievery. It took only a glare of Casimir's molten bronze eyes to tell him it was something darker.
The lower city was the older city, for the most part. The first stretches of Baletor built over a thousand years ago, the first foundations still standing, and ever sprawling. Indeed, when the guilds were first formed, the city expanded far beyond the ability to even now properly manage. There were sections forgotten by guilders, taxmen, and even the prince, squalid dens where people like the thief might dwell undisturbed until they struck out too far. These slums were the hunting grounds of paladins like Casimir as much as the great guildhalls whose perpetual conspiring and at best loose morals were a scourge on the city.
This was it, the thief said in a low whisper, the place many of the cloaked figures had been converging upon. Had it not been for the clank of a rough lock just up ahead, they might not have found it. The night had been so utterly still, and the sound so sly in its movements, that it drew attention to itself. The paladin slunk, panther-like, to the door, and gently tested to see if it would give easily. It was regrettably solid, he remarked under his breath. Standing back, he braced to ram the door down, but the thief put his hand out to stop him. In one fluid movement, the thief had crouched down onto one knee and pulled out a thin length of metal. It was locked, and not barred, he said, and minutes later a soft click issued, and the thief loosened the door. There was a fine skill to it, Casimir admitted to himself, raising only an eyebrow as he slipped into the shadows.
Not a minute in, they could both tell was something was wrong. A lone candle sat on a wooden stool on the right side of a small, otherwise bare room. Its light was a sickly orange. The corners of the place were utterly black, and all around the candle's pale circle of light was an uneasy, shifting bank of shadow. At the far end of room was a hallway. How long, neither could tell. Nights in Baletor were dark, but what lay at the end of that hallway was something else entirely. Casimir bade the thief pick up the candle, and follow.
There was a door, that was certain, rickety and loose in its frame, but no matter how close they held the candle, nothing could be made out of it. The paladin listened at the door for some minutes. There was a kind of shifting and shuffling, but whether of feet or dragging objects, he couldn't be sure. He looked to the thief, in whose eyes was a glimmer of gold that shook with fear. The fellow clearly wanted to bolt out of there. Casimir didn't blame him, he hadn't reckoned on this. But penance must be meted out, and he could do good here.
"Better you hadn't stumbled upon this yourself," Casimir said. Sliding his hammer back into his belt, he tried the doorhandle. It was open.
Serpent of Old
Though there was no light to be found, the shapes around them seemed defined somehow. They had left the candle behind. The paladin stalked low, hammer and buckler held at the ready. The soft sound of metal upon leather shushed into his ears, above that continuous everywhere-and-nowhere shuffling.
"Use that only if you must," said Casimir to the thief. "I want at least one of these devils alive." If there had been even the faintest notion of a dagger in the back and a swift exit, they were quickly ushered from the thief's mind.
The building went back further than they thought. Likely this was the result of the fusing and restructuring of several buildings in the past, sealed away and rediscovered. There were places like this all over the lower city, forgotten corners and entire buildings lost amidst the jumble, disused and let fall to ruin, built upon over and over again. And it was going down, and the deeper they went, the more it felt like passing through water. There was an indefinable heaviness, and something in the back of each man's mind itched with the dread of latent instinct. After a point, every step through that place took a more than mortal resolve.
Then there was a sound. It wasn't the atmosphere of the place—it was something close. Voices. A dirge-like chant suffused with a barely restrained energy, a call waiting to rise into a wail. The weight of the air grew with each second's advance down the hallway. At last there was a great stone archway, a black maw looming from the omnipresent shadow. All of a sudden there was a burst, and a crushing weight fell upon the paladin as the dread chant ceased. He fell forward several steps through the archway, and saw there defined in the dark four shapes, human shapes, standing tall in the finery of the upper city.
One of the four walked forward, hand outstretched in imperious command. Through the murk, the paladin saw that he looked much like himself, or the thief, a Baletor native. Something about this made his heart neartly burst with fury as he strained to move.
"Paladin," spoke a soft voice, a cultured a voice, a guildsman voice. "Love you not order? The strength and unity of law and dominion? Let us not dawdle, I offer you openly, in kinship, a boon, though you come to me a foe."
Casimir did not respond, but his golden eyes flared.
"A learned a man you are, of this I have no doubt. The learning of the paladins is admirable, but secrets...have been kept from you." The figure came closer now. "The order of the Voerlund snake shatters in shadow. The rays of Imaal grow dim amidst the dark. You feel now the merest fraction of the power of true lordship upon this world—enough to bring a mighty fellow like yourself to his knees. Fealty to the Serpent of Old is all which is required for you to stand with it at your back, not upon your shoulders!"
A mere second passed before a flying shaft of silver broke the tense silence, and the thief's thrown dagger buried itself in the cultist's neck. In a flash, Casimir flew forward with a roar and plunged the edge of his buckler into the man's forehead with a sickening crunch. He didn't look back, but knew the thief had joined him.
"You don't understand!" cried one of them, "THESE are your true gods!" This came with a solid blast of some kind of force which wrapped itself about the paladin. He had yet to draw forth his hammer again, and his free hand snapped to his neck where he wore his Sign of the Hammer. It was as much a devotional symbol as a badge of office: a palm-sized pendant in which was a down-curving arc, from the bottom side were emitted seven lines—the rays of Imaal, and cradled in the topside of the arc was a thick T shape, the Sign of the Hammer itself.
Casimir thundered forth, his limbs aching, and drove his fist into the the stomach of the closest cultist. With nary a moment's hesitation, he unhooked his hammer and thrust the heavy, square head into the face of his opponent, whose sorceries ceased to affect him. The thief had retrieved his dagger and was eyeing the other two, who cowered before the dreadful idol which revealed itself. Casimir beheld it in a second and spat: a colossal, coiling, serpentine horror in whose fanged, leering visage these fools may have seen fearsome might, but all the paladin saw was repulsive evil. No grand guardian god or mystery of order was it—primal, dark, a shadow from beyond, unnatural to every sense.
"Serpent coil upon this place," he gasped, "Imaal set it to rights."
The two other cultists were on their knees now, speaking oily words he did not understand but hated, holding their hands up to the air. Casimir followed their motions up. Although everything else had that bizarre dark definition, the ceiling did not. In fact, there was no ceiling, just a sable pool which he felt must reach up much further than it naturally ought to. He had a sensation of being in a vast, open space, with no cover, around which a titanic, unseen predator was circling, a mouth big enough to swallow the world whole.
There was movement in the chamber. All around them, that aimless shift and shuffle became a cacophany of rushing forms in the air itself, a feeble grasping and pawing across the whole body—for something within the body—that held a monstrous desperation in its movements. The thief, who had been blocking their exit out, screamed as he fell back.
"Do NOT give it what it wants!" bellowed the paladin. Casimir had been in this situation before. The worst thing one could do was cower down before it. This place was an invasion waiting to be routed. "Hold fast," he growled as he strode forth, hammer held high. Suddenly, one of cultists flung themselves forth, a wicked shortsword held to pierce the paladin's chest, but Casimir deflected the blow easily on his buckler and brought his hammer down into the ribs of the assailant, who crumpled immediately. The thief dove on the shape, and slit their throat.
"Paladin!" the thief cried, "By Oros-bel, what is this!" There was no time explain. The visage of the Aeon, the Serpent of Old, looked almost like it might burst to life in any second, so much were the shadows swirling about it, giving it the impression of abhorrent animation.
Casimir pointed with his hammer to the remaining cultist who was standing up, and working some nameless sorcery. "Bring him down!"
They both rushed in, but the paladin was knocked to the side by the bloody-nosed gnostic who had regained their posture. A dagger was slashed across the side of his head and he roared—the attack had barely missed, and in the dark he saw the staring eyes and bared teeth of a face that looked less a woman and more like a demon. The edge of his buckler met her throat, and he tackled her aside as he rose up.
The thief was fighting the last remaining gnostic.
"Do you think you'll leave here alive? You've been seen! You've been seen! By the Godhead of All you will taken BACK!"
The thief felt in that moment as if the void above was the pupil of a single immense eye which looked down upon them. He did not appreciate being watched so. The thief ducked and slipped behind the cultist, holding his dagger tight to the man's throat, kicking the back of his knees so that he fell.
"Move, and I'll make it slow, yeah?"
Casimir stepped slowly up to the idol of what they had called the Serpent of Old. What demon god was this? What primeval shadow from beyond the stars had these fools bowed down to? And for what smidgen of power did they trade their souls? Casimir knew of the hints of a colossal malevolence which lurked in the shadow of every light. Baletor was rife with it. But so too was it rife with righteous gods. He hooked his weapons back to his belt, and took the large serpentine icon with both hands, and threw it to the ground, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. Each one, he assured his prisoners, would be smashed to dust by the Hammers of Imaal.
The two cultists whimpered as they were dragged out, babbling that they had tried their best, to please have mercy, to grant them the power to do the will of the Godhead. No guardian or guide was their god, and these were not its wards—it was master, they were slaves. In the light of dawn, in the mouldering back street, did the thief speak to Casimir.
"I might not make an honest living," he said as he looked down upon the beaten, exhausted forms of the blasphemers, "but at least I'm not this."
The paladin grunted in assent. With that, he offered the openness of the Temple of Imaal and its aid, and that should he really need to creep through the night as he did, to choose his targets a little further up, and a little more carefully.
Tower of Echoes
A sound stirs you.
Were you asleep? Or lost in thought?
It doesn't matter, there's an echo from down the hallway. It's definitely that, and not something else. It slithers down the passage you were slumped in. Just clear enough to catch the attention above the faint cracks and trickles of the old tower, or the shift of your feet on the dusty stone. What else is there to do but follow?
It's been days since you entered. You must be underground now. The tower goes as far up as it does down. It's hard to guess the true elevation of the various staircases and slopes you've wound your way upon. The circumference at least seems to be the same no matter where you are, at no point does a corridor go on too long with a slow turn or sudden curve, which makes knowing your position in these lightless halls all the more difficult.
The heat of your torch contrasts with the clammy chill of the tower. The echo is faint now, but all there is to do is follow. This one, you feel, was like a voice. That's good, you believe. To be called out to, to follow. But before you were following the sound of some clangour, sometimes behind you, sometimes far ahead, leading you down a different passage than you had intended to take. Then you were following footsteps, close at hand. Never have you experienced the initial impact, always the rhythmic chant of their echo.
There are corpses everywhere. Many of them are very old. The plate of the armour is thoroughly rusted, but the small details stand out on close inspection, still impressive. The cloth of others is rotten, revealing the unseemly decay beneath. And not every corpse here is old. You've taken a few things from a few packs, but the strange guilt attached to each is noticeably heavy.
Ahead of you is a T-junction. There is no echo to help you choose a way to go. You haven't noted down which direction you usually take. Neither seems worthy of favour. In your torchlight, each low, arched tunnel of dull grey stone, marked by the odd streak of moisture, fades first into soft, hazy shadow, and finally ends in a pool of absolute darkness. You feel as if the darkness isn't just a lack of light, but a fog unto itself. You feel that, if it were possible to get close enough in a short enough time, the deep dark of these tunnels might actually snuff out a flame.
There's a sound to the left.
It isn't an echo.
You are not alone here.
You had dimly hoped that the bodies you've seen had all been exhausted seekers, but the wounds upon some made it plainly obvious that the stories were true. Most don't find the the god entombed here, or the desire it can give. Not everyone escapes the tower.
The first thing you see are eyes. Wide, staring. Not in shock, nor in fear. Fixed upon you with intent. They are surrounded by flesh, discoloured and sickly, and glistening with sweat. All else is black rags, stained with age and blood. Down by its side, the dull gleam of metal.
The figure screams at the top of its lungs, BE QUIET!
As it throws itself at you, teeth bared and frothing, will you fight the echo-haunted madman, or try to flee and lose it?
"Oh god god my god I can still hear it..."
Either way, in the confusion, you become lost, turned around. If the final words of the madman are still echoing in your head, it would be best to not think of them.
The lower reaches of the tower have repelled you before, as they are sunken, flooded, and unsafe. So you have been trying to take as many steps leading up as you can, to the high tower, which from outside reaches above the vast, cavern-like canopy of the black forest. They say this tower pierces the aether. That we tried giving back to the sky its child, but it could not be returned. So this is the best we can do. Gods don't really die like people, they just change somehow. That's what happened here, the old scroll in the library read. A dead god, bereft of its ability to govern what part of the world it was granted, and so it desperately seeks to give back what it can in lieu of divine order. But it is dead, and a god, and so it draws by strange ways.
Ahead of you there sits a longer than usual corridor that slightly winds. There is an echo from the end of it. There is also another sound. Something large scuttles about the floor ahead. The tower entrance is quite open, and all manner of things have crawled in over the centuries. You wonder if beasts can hear the echoes, too. If some creature hasn't found the god, and been granted some desire.
Hidden between two pillars in a vaulted room where the feverish drag of flesh on stone made your skin crawl, you found a spiral staircase. You've been crawling up it for hours now, your legs aching.
There is nowhere to go but forward. Curiously, this passage isn't damp like the rest of the tower. About an hour ago, back on the steps, you heard an echo from above. It sounded, again, like a voice. Light, airy, and very weak. But clear. It sang. The flash of a childhood image of a garden passes across your mind. You get up, and shamble forward.
You haven't heard it since.
There is an end to this dry passage. The door isn't especially tall, but it is splendidly decorated, pristine silver and dark oak. You may as well open it.
Inside is a small but high chamber. It is lit from above. You have to shield your eyes, so accustomed to the dark are you, but you can feel real air and light on you. Ringing this circular room are statues of praying and weeping figures in white marble. In the middle of the room is a stone slab.
Upon lies the dead god.
Perhaps slightly taller than a person, it is curled up like a child, with a veil of skin taught over its bones. Inside its chest are small, black withered lumps. Organs, perhaps. Divine anatomy. One of its hands is reaching out slightly.
Unprepared, you gently brush your fingertips against its protruding knuckles.
"Yes," it says, quite clearly.
What were you thinking of? Maybe it knew. You hope it did. You take your hand away. All of this only lasted a second.
You turn around.
A sound stirs you.
Were you asleep? Or lost in thought?
It doesn't matter. There's a bird singing overhead. It's definitely that, and not something else.