Chapter 124

The voice’s words echoed in my mind. The sudden dread in its tone chilled me. This voice, so jaded and bored by its apparent eternity of existence, now seemed afraid. Perhaps I’m projecting my own emotions, but at the very least, the voice hummed with concern.

At this moment, I must do something I haven’t yet done in my tale: we must change scene and perspective. I need to tell you about the events that began to transpire in the basement of the arena at, what I believe, was that very same instant. I can’t swear that my description is completely accurate, but I have gathered my sources since that day, and I believe what I tell you next is very close to the truth.

Further, I must warn you: these events may seem random, a coincidence too great to bear, but I promise you, there was nothing random about what occurred in the basement as I readied myself to finish Lance far above. It took me many years to understand the nature of those events, but their source, and the complete lack of coincidence, is vital to the story of my entire life.

Below the main floor of the arena lay a vast basement. This was the staging area for many shows and fights performed for the people. The floor of the arena had numerous hatches leading to the basement. During shows and combats, contestants could be delivered to the arena floor with great drama. Fiends could be introduced for spectacular effect. And it was for this reason that the collected fiends of the arena were caged there.

Fiends in this time were rarer than you might expect, far less numerous than wolves or bears. Many lived their entire lives without ever laying eyes on one. Fiends may have played a vast role in my story, but they were truly uncommon. Yet these powerful monsters posed a dire threat to common folk, especially in the wilds. A single bearwolf could terrorize a village, decimating herds, growing hungry, and eventually attacking the population itself. Left unchecked, a single fiend could extinguish an entire settlement. Thus, it was the duty of lords and knights to slay these creatures.

But fiends had value. Their rarity and danger made them valuable. They were a great addition to any arena event, let alone The Choosing. Whenever possible, hunters would capture the beasts rather than kill them, bringing them to the city. A fiend regenerates supernaturally, so even those mortally wounded could often heal back to a useful state.

Thus, beneath the arena, among the stored effects, were cages housing monsters. Monsters we’ve already met in this tale. The cages held wolflings, bearwolves, the ape-monsters from the tower, and a scattering of the rat-like creatures I encountered at the beginning of this story. Hideous and terrifying though they were, they caged well. Time enough around anything can breed boredom.

And so, Barnabus cared little for the agitation of the creatures as he walked to the stairs leading to the arena floor. He noticed their heightened agitation—the louder rattling of bars, the screeches and hoots—but paid it no mind. Barnabus was one of the guards assigned to the fiends. He fed them, cleaned after them. Over his career, he had grown used to them. You could even say he had grown complacent. But the louder noises still caught his ear.

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The problem for poor Barnabus was that he was missing the spectacle Lance and I were providing. He had no desire to miss it. In fact, the only reason he wasn’t watching was because the shaft of the moving platform from which we fought exited in the basement. Someone had to be present when the Bishop and priests descended. They had bodyguards, of course, but protocol demanded that some staff member be available as the Bishop moved through the unpleasant arena basement.

Once the bishop and his entourage had departed, Barnabus was obliged to remain for a time. He didn’t want to be seen scurrying off, leaving the dangerous creatures unattended. So, he waited, hearing the crowd noises swell above him, wondering what spectacles of The Choosing he was missing. Barnabus did a fair amount of pacing and foot-tapping, listening with growing regret each time the crowd roared. But eventually, he convinced himself he had waited long enough. Barnabus turned and began walking toward the stairs.

The stairs were located at the far end of the space, away from the caged fiends. So, when the creatures suddenly erupted, shaking their cages and screeching with sudden intensity, they were distant from him. He tried to ignore the noise, his focus fixed on reaching the stands and witnessing the once-in-a-lifetime fight playing out above him. But the noise only intensified, and he had no choice but to stop and look.

Barnabus turned and peered through the gloom at the cages at the far end of the arena. At first, nothing seemed to be wrong. It wasn’t as though the creatures never got excited. All it took was one agitating another to start a frenzy that escalated. Maybe one of the ape creatures had reached through the bars to pull the tail of a wolfling. Maybe the sounds of the excited crowd had piqued them.

He started to turn back toward the stairs when he saw the first spark. In the poorly lit space, the spark, though small, was undeniable. And, of course, it was quickly followed by another, and then another. Barnabus, ignorant of what he was seeing, took a step closer, confused but intrigued. The sparks were leaping from the surface of the metal bars of the cages. They came faster and faster until their combined luminescence began to brighten the space, casting the moving shadows of the fiends in sharp relief.

It is important to note that Barnabus only took a few hesitant steps. He was perturbed by the display, fearful of something he didn’t understand. And that is significant because had he ventured too close, he would not have survived to witness what happened next. Had he marched right over to the cages, Barnabus would have ceased to exist.

Instead, Barnabus took only a few halting steps. He was right to be afraid. The sparks themselves were flying with such fury that they might have been dangerous to him, and perhaps they signaled a looming disaster for the integrity of the cages. Barnabus had no desire to be standing next to a cage that might pop open, bringing him face to face with one of the terrifying fiends.

As the stream of sparks came closer and closer together, they eventually blended into a continuous glow. The intensity of the light reminded Barnabus of nothing so much as a welder’s torch. That is how he later described it to me.

But his confusion, his concern, morphed into panic as the blackness began to swirl. As he watched, the shadows of the basement began to merge and shift, moving in ways that defied reality.

Though Barnabus didn’t understand what he was witnessing, it filled him with a deep and primal dread—a supernatural dread. He had no way of comprehending the display unfolding before him.

But I can tell you what Barnabus was seeing. Barnabus was witnessing the manifestation of a tiny Entropy Storm, contained in one corner of the basement.

Tiny though it might have been, even the smallest iteration of an Entropy Storm was akin to a window into the bowels of hell.