“Those must’ve been stonehornish kings entombed there. They’ve joined the Maker’s Embrace,” Eve said as they entered the huge chamber beyond. “But, why were there no names on their….” Her voice trailed off as she dumbly looked around.
Eight columns stretched from the white marble floor to the curved ceiling several hundred feet above, each wide as a highway. The entire ceiling, larger in area than the village Eve grew up in, was covered in a humongous single piece of ‘Soul Crystal’, a name that definitely tickled her imagination.
The presence that they’d felt outside in the corridor felt more subtle in here – but far more pervasive, so much so that she even fancied she saw the light purple glow of the weird kernel signature come free off the Crystal in sparks that lasted less than a heartbeat, leaving a brilliant afterglow in her essence senses. On both the shorter sides of the rectangular room, Eve spied raised granite platforms, above which rested beautifully carved chairs, also made of rock. Some strange black rock.
Sitting cross-legged on each chair was a ghost. One stonehorn, the other human.
The back of the chairs held a large red crystal which seemed to be generating the semi-corporeal entities using a combination of staggeringly complex Manipulation, intricate sigils and good old-fashioned stonehornish ingenuity. Eve had never seen a ghost in her life, though, of course, she’d met more than a few nutcases who swore up and down that they’d done so. Turns out, not all of them were raving lunatics.
“They have indeed joined the Maker’s Embrace, though not all entombed there are kings,” the human ghost informed her. “Some started life as mere peasants. Through their deeds in life, they earned the privilege of Eternal Rest.” Then, looking over their group with a critical gaze, he frowned. “You are oddly well-informed for humans,” he said, completely ignoring Aisha who looked the most ill-at-ease of the four.
“So are you,” Eve shot back. “Human, I mean. Alive, not so much.” Then, turning around she saw that the stonehornish ghost was having a fit.
“Sacrilegious!!!” he screamed, phantasmal spittle spewing out from his flushed bearded face. “How are you even here? How are you alive? This is sacred rock you desecrate with your feet. With your breath. With your very presence!!!”
“I brought them here,” the human ghost said. “They were judged and found worthy. Check for yourself,” he added quickly before the stonehorn could explode into another tirade.
This prompted the crazy ghost to cock his head for a moment. “But they’re humans,” he said, a bewildered expression on his translucent face.
Eve hid her frown once she noticed that the strong emotions had somehow made the ghost’s Crown more prominent, now emitting a faint glowing light – both their Crowns were, she noted with interest after looking back and forth between the two. Earlier, with static dark Chakras, they well and truly were dead as a doorknob, at least in her essence senses. Now, she wasn’t as certain. A hint of clockwise rotation could be discerned inside the Crowns.
“As this young lady just pointed out,” the slightly less crazy ghost said with a nod toward her direction, “I am also a human. Or at least, I was.”
“She is an aditaru.” The stonehorn gave Aisha a scathing glance.
“She’s not. She has both aditarun and human blood.”
Eve thought it best to wait and see how this played out. So she leaned back against a pillar and kept observing. Arjun for a moment looked ready to intervene on Aisha’s behalf, but James locked eyes with him and gave a subtle shake of the head. Meanwhile, the two ghosts were still going at each other like an old married couple.
“The pact….”
“Was with your tribe,” said the stonehornish ghost, cutting the other off. “Not with every human that wanders in here.”
“They don’t mean the Balgistin stonehorns any harm,” the human ghost said, although Eve wasn’t sure how he’d know that for certain.
“Or any stonehorn for that matter,” Arjun put in. James closed his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.
“I say we let the Maker decide,” the stonehorn insisted.
His opposite number threw up his arms and declared, “So be it.”
“I thought he’d already decided,” Eve said, straightening up. She was starting to get a funny feeling about this whole situation.
“Foolish girl. That was just a whiff of the Maker’s presence.” The ghost Eve desperately wanted to punch smirked, making him look even more punchable. “This will be a more thorough examination.”
Just as Eve was starting to wonder if ghosts could be punched at all, the giant Crystal on the ceiling started glowing pink-red and a kernel signature stronger than any Eve had ever sensed descended into the chamber.
What followed was strange beyond belief.
The familiar tendrils slowly came free off the Soul Crystal, bolts of kernel shooting between branches. They changed from pinkish to red, finally taking on an even more familiar dark-purple hue. Eve closed her eyes as the foreign kernel touched her hair, which by now stood erect.
Then, a vast presence started scouring her mind.
She felt naked. Vulnerable. Sensing no malevolent intent, she gritted her teeth and fully opened up her Crown, though a part of her mind still continued to struggle. Her Crown Chakra and one single tendril interacted, like two strangers meeting in a forest glade. Discordant yet of a singular mind, the presence delved deep into her Crown. What it sensed, it approved, even her shameful loss of temper in Shillang.
After Aimin knows how long, the tendril gradually retreated through the top of her head, leaving her curly brown hairs a mess. Well, more of a mess than usual.
A single thought echoed in her mind before she lost her battle with oblivion.
Follow your heart. And stay true to it.
When Eve regained her senses, she found herself sprawled on the pristine white marble floor in a fetal position staring at the tear-stained face of the gorgeous giraffe otherwise known as Aisha.
“Stripped bare,” she croaked. “To the soul.”
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Aisha wiped the tears off her own face, giving Eve a smile that broke her heart. “Everyone’s got their fair share of sob stories, I guess,” she muttered, slowly getting to her feet. Arjun and James were already up, though both looked shaken.
“Your group is even more interesting than I’d assumed,” declared the human ghost, still sitting in the same posture. Perks of being a ghost. You don’t get cramps. “I’m Brulim, and that bag of old bones over there is Drulim,” he said, gesturing toward the silently grumbling stonehorn. “We are the Twin Sages of Kailash.”
Eve frowned. Before she could ask anything about the similarity of their names, Arjun exclaimed. “You’re brothers!!!” He whirled, looking from one to the other, his voice more confused than accusatory. “You’re both half-human. So why in the name of Aimin do you hate humans?” he asked the sour-faced stonehorn.
“Keep Melwig the Slayer out of it. It will only complicate matters,” answered the stonehorn. Or the half-stonehorn who looked exactly like a stonehorn. Quite unusual as far as Eve knew. “I don’t hate humans. Not all of them anyway. Most of them, yes, and for good reasons, which you know nothing about. Don’t be so hasty to judge people.”
“Speaking of humans, there is a small army of them outside,” the Battle Cleric said in a suggestive tone.
“They’ve begun their search. With the amount of Basil and granite between here and their present location, it’d take them centuries to find the outer corridor, even considering the fact that they seem to have almost a dozen Earth Clerics in their midst. We also have other means at our disposal. You can firmly lay all your worries to rest. They will never venture down here.”
James gave the Sages a deep bow which the rest of them awkwardly copied. Eve hated bowing. Of course, shaking hands with a ghost might be tricky, she thought, eyeing their translucent bodies. Also, who knew what other weird tricks they might have up their sleeves. It’s always best to avoid skin contact, even with a ghost.
“Some of my companions may,” James caught her eyes, straightening up, “or may not be aware of the privilege accorded to us here, but I am. This secret will not be shared with many.”
With some, it can’t be avoided. The ghosts nodded, one looking glum, the other resigned. Then, giving them a smile, the human-looking ghost said, “We have a gift for each of you.”
Eve’s eyes lit up in anticipation.
“The best gift we can afford to give. Advice.”
Eve’s smile fell. Although the experience already gained was a treasure in and of itself, she wouldn’t have minded some useful tools or trinkets to remember it by. Or even gold. She was running low on cash.
“Mourning the past will not bring the dead back from the grave,” the human ghost told James in an almost grandfatherly tone. “However, it will hasten the living into it.”
James hung his head, face contorted in agony. Only lasted a moment. Then the walls went back up, firm as ever.
No wonder he’s such a downer. Carrying all that guilt. At least it felt like guilt. Looking at her fellow travelers, Eve realized Arjun was in almost as much distress as James. Even Aisha seemed unsettled. Or rather, more unsettled. She’d been flighty as a bird since entering this temple. Makes sense given the reception she’d received.
“I have a feeling a significant part of the future is standing beside me in this chamber,” James said, including Arjun, Aisha, and after a blink, Eve in his gaze, which earned him a scowl.
“You….” The stonehorn turned to Eve, holding her gaze with his odd dark eyes that seemed like the only solid part of his anatomy. “Possess a good heart and more talent than you think. Or fear.” He looked less punchable now. “Trust your heart. And not your instincts.”
Seeing true sincerity in those dark orbs, Eve couldn’t help but nod. Instinct is what drives her father. To the edge of madness. And beyond.
The human ghost looked at Aisha and gave a sad smile. “Child, I know it’s hard. But you need to start learning how to trust others.” His gaze shifted to Arjun. “You’ve already started on the right path. Expand the circle of trust.”
Staying with Arjun, his smile vanished and a frown formed. “You are an enigma, even to yourself,” he said, absently stroking his absent beard. “Don’t stop seeking even if you don’t like what you find along the way.”
“Find about myself? My past? Or my parents?” Arjun asked.
Of course, he asked. Eve was starting to think he’d pester Aimin himself into his deathbed by asking mostly pointless questions. The sentiment behind these questions, however, Eve could understand, at least intuitively. He must also have an interesting relationship with his parents. Eve smelled a kindred soul, but now was not the time for inquiries.
“All of them. But mostly about yourself. It’s what you, and perhaps everyone, fears the most.”
Eve ignored the pit in her stomach, burying the memory of the power she’d felt while killing those men. It was addictive. It was also the first step on a path that ends with her becoming what or who she hated most in this world. If she let her instincts – her primal self – drive her actions.
Then, with a grinding noise that echoed throughout the grand chamber, the platform holding the stonehorn’s elaborate chair shifted, revealing a circular hole with a spiral staircase. “May Jukatis hasten your journey. Don’t know what my descendants will decide to do with you. I hope they don’t end up killing you all. Else, all our efforts would’ve been for naught.”
Eve was the first to climb down the steep but short staircase. At the bottom, she found herself in a relatively normal-looking corridor which ended at a set of ancient double-doors made of stone. Well, normal by stonehornish standards. It still was twenty feet wide.
The last to arrive was Arjun. As the platform snapped back into place, leaving them in the light of the glowstones embedded into stone sconces on the walls, the first thing he did was whirl toward James and ask, “What exactly is this Soul Crystal? Jukatis doesn’t know things you yourself are unaware of, does he?”
After fixing him with a long-suffering look, James let out a sigh. “Soul Crystals can store a tiny sliver of consciousness. Under certain very strict circumstances, several Soul Crystals in unison can give rise to an altogether separate entity, holding only a few of the memories of the constituent parts,” the Cleric explained, throwing a thoughtful glance above. “Or, it can destroy the individual ones leaving you with nothing but a worthless pile of rock. Nobody knows how or even why it works the way it does. When it works at all. Which is pretty much never. If you discount the handful of stonehornish temples.”
“There are three temples, aren’t there? Temples with Living Gods,” Eve said, counting them off with her fingers. “Bramka, Krumilam, and Skyldeva. Well, four now, I suppose.”
“And just as many lost ones. Because of the Cataclysm,” James confirmed. “We thought Jukatis was one of the lost. Now, we know better.” He shook his head in frustration. “Stonehorns and their secrets. Peas in a pod. Now, all we have to do is convince them not to slaughter us all for discovering one of them.”
“Is there a chance they could locate us down here?” Eve asked. “The Clerics, I mean.”
“There is a chance.” James shrugged, “But unless they know exactly where to look, which I very much doubt, and move the hidden latch using earth Manipulation, and get around whatever protections the Sages have set up, there is very little chance of them finding this place.”
“Speaking of this place, it’s a stonehornish settlement, isn’t it?”
“Yes. One of the two main subterranean stonehornish cities in the Kailash Mountains. Balgistin, meaning ‘Hidden Home’ in old Hornish.”
“So, how do you think the stonehorns will receive us?” Arjun grimaced. “We effectively entered through the back door.”
“Of their secret temple no less,” Eve added.
“Let me do the talking.” James cautiously pushed open the doors and entered, Eve directly behind him.
The chamber beyond was small, with the only furniture being a single sturdy table and a chair. A stonehorn wearing what looked to be full battle-armor was sitting in the chair, helmeted head slumped on the table, beside his small saber.
It took a moment for them to realize that the melodious sound emanating from him originated inside his nasal cavity.
“Hello?” Arjun rushed to the stonehorn's side and shook him by the shoulders, threatening to dislocate them. “Excuse me, sir.”
The stonehorn, still befuddled from sleep, looked up at him with bleary eyes, which then shifted to his companions. After a couple of blinks, comprehension dawned as his eyes widened in alarm. Jumping to his feet, he bolted out of the only other door in the room while shouting at the top of his considerable voice.
“Inngeters flig tebilian. Aletig all. Inngeters aletig.”
A bemused Arjun gave a guilty glace toward James, who was shaking his head in exasperation.
“You had to wake him up, didn’t you?”