I backpedaled into the doorway as the robed skeletal figure glided towards me.

“Well, I don’t have a lot of supplies, but I’m glad to share,” I said warily. “I am sure I could make us something tasty.”

“You are everything I need. Chewing gobbets of your succulent flesh. The salty taste of your warm blood. Crushing your bones to get out all the delicious marrow. That sounds tasty indeed.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I replied. “You are one creepy dude, or thing, or whatever. Your melodramatic monologue is little contrived but given the time you’ve had to think about what you were going to say the next time somebody wandered by, I guess that’s understandable. If you think I’m just going to crouch down and bare my throat to you so that you can consume me, you’re an idiot. If we’re going to fight, let’s fight. Just shut up already.”

“I’m going to enjoy this,” it responded. “I love it when my prey struggles.” That was its version of a scathing reply? Oh, burn!

I continued to back up a couple of steps beyond the threshold, being careful not to trip over the fallen stone door. Unlimbering my staff, I squared up to the doorway in a fighting stance. I guess I would need to work on my conversational skills, because it seemed like every time I tried to use them I either ended up threatened, having to spend money, or in combat.

The creature continued to approach languidly. I think it was waiting for me to flee, to show it my back, when it would turn on the afterburners and pounce. When it reached the doorway, I slid forward and aimed a two handed thrust at its midsection, probing its defenses.

With a burst of speed, its arm swept down and across its body, deflecting the thrust and forcing it to narrowly miss its body. I was careful not to overbalance with my strike and smoothly recovered into a guard position. Seeing how quickly it had moved, I was afraid I might be a little overmatched. As long as I could keep it framed in the doorway, though, I should be able to neutralize some of its speed.

It lashed out with a claw. Just as I thought, it moved with tremendous quickness. I managed to interpose my staff in front of the strike in time, but the force of the blow sent me staggering back a step. That step saved me when the thing’s other clawed hand swept through the space that I had just vacated.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I defiantly spit out. I guess that was a mistake as the creature’s only response was a low chuckle.

I needed to regain the initiative. I didn’t think I would be able to tire out a tireless undead monstrosity. I stepped forward and unleashed a combination strike. First, I aimed a little check swing from right to left at its head. Its raised arm easily warded off the strike. The follow up, however, was more effective. Twisting my body to generate as much power as I could, my return attack crashed into the thing’s right knee, staggering it. It didn’t collapse to the ground as I had hoped, though.

This time I was a little off kilter, leaning a little too far forward. I paid for that as the monster regained its balance before I did. Surging forward, it bowled into me, overpowering me and knocking me backwards. I was unable to keep my balance and fell flat on my ass. It pounced on top of me, lashing out with its claws and lunging forward with its reptilian head. I tried to wriggle free but it had me pinned.

I flinched as its skeletal head darted forward, teeth gnashing. It clamped down on my shoulder, tearing out a bloody chunk of flesh. Then, still holding me down, it started humming contentedly as it chewed my tissue, acting as if it had all the time in the world.

In some ways it did. I tried to pull my knees up to gain some leverage and protect my vital organs, but it shifted its skeletal hips downwards and I couldn’t gain any traction. Then it took another bite, this time from my other shoulder. The pain of its serrated teeth as it worked its jaw was excruciating. I was in real trouble. I could feel my first wound starting to heal, but unless I could find a way out, all my enhanced healing would do was prolong my inevitable demise.

I wriggled. I bucked. I tried to roll back and forth. Nothing seemed to help though as it inflicted wound after painful wound, all the while relishing the meal that was my body.

I started losing my grasp on reality, my mind drifting once more. Soon, I had mostly disassociated myself from the pain, drifting deeper and deeper towards the release of oblivion.

I thought about a lot of things as I was slowly consumed. Mainly, I reflected on the series of choices that I had made, each making some degree of sense at the time, that had led me to this stone floor, to these slavering jaws.

Just out of the sight, brushing against my peripheral vision, I started to sense a warm light. Was I dying? Was this the light at the end of the tunnel? I started to reach for the light, hoping for an escape from my torment. Pushing with all of my mental strength, I forced the boundaries of my mind outward. Inch by inch, my mind expanded, drawing the light closer. I felt my energy flagging as I hung there with a pool of light just out of my reach.

With a last grunt of effort I threw everything that I was towards the light. Everything I had ever been. Everything that I ever would be. Please let it be enough, I thought. I wanted this all to end.

And then, the light and I were one. It poured into me, filling me with a sense of peace. I drifted in the pool for an interminable time, overwhelmed by the wonder of the experience.

Slowly, though, my consciousness started to return. My mind retreated from the pool, and once more I felt terror and pain. I could hear again, and what I heard was screaming. For a moment, I thought the screaming voice was mine, that I had given the creature what it wanted, capitulation in mind and body. Then I realized the voice was not my own.

My eyes snapped open. The room was much brighter. Instead of the sickly blue glow of the sigils inscribed in the ceiling, the room was lit with a warm white light. I glanced down at my body and I saw. Beams of coherent light were pouring from me, illuminating my skin and highlighting the veins and capillaries underneath.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The screaming that I heard was from the creature astride me. It was madly trying to extricate itself from my grip, as sometime in my delirium I had reached out and grabbed each of its hands with my own. Where the light struck it, it burned, its bones bubbling and flowing like lava.

I released my right hand from the ruined remains of the creature’s left arm. Looking at its skull, its jaws were spread wide open as it screamed, locked in a rictus of pain. Throwing caution to the wind, I jammed my incandescent right hand deep between the jaws. I could feel the skin of my arm lacerate as it tore across the thing’s wicked teeth, but I didn’t care. And as the blazing torch of my arm contacted its skull, that starting bubbling and melting, too. Soon the screams cut off, and the monster collapsed limply on top of me. As its animating spirit was destroyed, its bones started rapidly decaying. All that was left was a fine grayish powder that covered much of me.

Suddenly, the light cut off. My head starting spinning and I felt nauseated. My wounds seared and my mind spun into a pool of inky black and I lost consciousness.

That’s how I discovered my magic, although it would take a lot of training for me to be able to use it with conscious effort. Apparently, I was attuned to light. Before that moment, I could have listed at least fifty more likely suspects. If I would have had a chance to guess, I would have thought I was constantly participating in the form of unintended consequences. Apparently, I didn’t know myself all that well.

But looking back, I guess there were hints along the way. Why was it I remained conscious when I was transported out of that cemetery back In NOLA? Why didn’t dark splotches appear when I was infected by that eldritch light?

Time passed, and I woke back up, hungry, thirsty and not yet fully healed. Aching, I climbed to my feet, and started seeing to my needs. After recovering for a little while, I once again entered the room that I had so recently fled.

Looking at the bones in the ritual circle, I could see that they had clearly been chomped on. I guess that thing wasn’t kidding when it said to would crack my bones to get to the marrow.

The altar itself was mounted on a solid pedestal. I had no idea what god or gods it had originally been dedicated to, as its iconography appeared to have been vandalized by swipes from preternaturally sharp claws. Gold inlay adorned the altar, but even if I had the patience to painstakingly chisel all the gold out, I didn’t have room to take it with me. Plus, gold is heavy, and if I needed to climb out of the canyon a heavy pack was not what I needed.

Searching the room, I didn’t find too much of interest. Sure, there were some nicely crafted items that had stood up over time, but none of them were all that practical. Who needs fours sets of finely crafted candelabra when they are stuck in the bottom of a big ditch? What use is there for an exquisitely made rolled up rug that depicts an idyllic forest scene when it would take two people to carry it any distance?

Finally, my search of the room was completed. I had carefully inspected the walls to see whether there were any concealed doors, but couldn’t find anything. There were no other exits so it looked like in the next day or two I would need to try to scale the walls of the canyon.

It was getting late and I was fairly tired so I decided to bed down for the night. Eyeing the altar, I realized that it would be large enough and solid enough to sleep on. Who would have the temerity to bed down on an altar dedicated to unknown deities? Me, that’s who. Especially after I dragged the plush rug that I had found over to the altar and draped it on top, folding it three times for extra padding. It looked like the most comfortable place I had slept since the inn in Sleetfield, and it was a tremendous improvement over the days that I spent paralyzed on the floor of the canyon. I didn’t even think that the light from the ceiling would bother me, I was that tired.

So, I climbed on top of the altar and tried to get comfortable. It was hard, though. As I lay there, tossing and turning, trying to settle after the stress of the day, I just couldn’t relax. My nagging injuries hurt and anxiety was running high. Just as I was finally starting to fall asleep, I felt a strange pop and the top of the altar shifted a little bit.

Great, I thought, this stupid altar is going to collapse on me in the middle of the night. I got back off, pulled the rug off the top of the altar and prepared to sleep on the floor. My eyes swept over the altar as the incongruity of what I felt sunk in. Each side of the altar’s base and the altar’s top were made of solid slabs of stone. There shouldn’t have been any room for it to shift or move. I started to carefully inspect the seams where the sides and top joined together. On each edge, the stones were joined together by mortar, and on one side near the top the mortar had crumbled, leaving perhaps an inch of gap.

I would have ignored that gap and gone back to sleep on the floor, except when I ran my hands across the gap I felt the faint stirring of fresh air wafting out. Fresh air, to me at least, indicated that there was a chamber of some sort under the altar. I jammed the tip of my staff into the gap and using its leverage pushed down with all of my might. The thing wouldn’t budge. Then, I got my trusty, dulled all to hell, high carbon steel belt knife and using it as an impromptu chisel started removing the rest of the mortar that held the top to the sides.

It crumbled fairly easily. As I was punching it inward, I was intrigued by the fact that I couldn’t hear the chunks of mortar rattling against the floor as they fell inside the pedestal. That made me more certain that I had actually found something and that my mind was not playing tricks on me.

After quite awhile, I finally had the mortar removed everywhere except the corners. This time, when I levered with the staff the top lifted a couple of inches. What I wouldn’t have done for another set of hands as I had no way to wedge the top open while applying the necessary force on my lever.

I ran back to the locker room to retrieve my coil of antique rope, refilling my water supply in the process. Then I returned to the altar, and after several failed attempts, I used my staff and the loop on the end of the rope to fish the rope from on side of the altar to the other. Then, wrapping the rope around my waist and shoulders, I leaned in hard and started to pull.

Stone ground against stone as I managed to start moving the top slab. The last of the mortar disintegrated with a crunch as the stone top dropped onto the base below it. This was the moment of truth. If the weight of the slab had severed the rope then I was likely done moving the thing. Thankfully, it hadn’t and in short order I had moved the slab over a foot or two so I could see whether my hypothesis was correct.

It was. I could vaguely see the metal rungs of a ladder embedded in the wall headed down into the darkness below. Not trusting the condition of the metal, given my experience in this place so far, I wiggled my way into the gap and used the rope to descend.

The shaft only dropped about ten feet. When I entered it, the ever present blue sigils illuminated, this time on the walls. Pulling out my last two essence crystals for their weak light, I could see a low tunnel sloping up. I could also feel a breeze blowing across my face. I carefully hiked up the tunnel. After about thirty feet, I found myself at a wide crack on the inside of what appeared to be the wall of a different canyon. Slipping through the crack, I found myself in a narrow defile. In one direction, the canyon floor deepened, but in the other, the faint starlight illuminated the end of the canyon.

Heading that direction, I smiled as I stalked into the night.