Part 4 – Prayers

Mortals will never run out of things to pray about, so imaginative are their inventions, and so harsh is the nature of life. Since arriving on new land, one such mortal had prayed for many things. She prayed for safe passage, she prayed for the life of a daughter, and a mother she did not know. She prayed for strength, and protection, and courage.

When hope seemed lost and life faltered, she prayed. Clio prayed breath back into one of her companions when Reaper loomed close with sickle and basket. As she looked around at her bloody and beaten compatriots; she prayed for this nightmare to end.

Daphne could barely speak and shivered intensely for an hour at least. There was no celebrating like their last victory. Kai nibbled on rations quietly as he stared out the bedroom door. Clio flinched at every creak and groan the house could muster. She tended to her companions with a steady, practiced hand, though worry was plastered plainly on her face.

When Kai placed a reassuring hand on Clio’s pale shoulder, she noticed herself tense and grimace. His gentle hands had reassured her before, they were usually a welcome comfort. However, in this ghastly house, after what her bright blue eyes had just seen, even the High Priestess Circe would have provided little comfort. Kai was nothing if not intuitive. After noticing Clio’s discomfort, he removed his hand and resumed his post by the door.

“What was that for?” Daphne asked through chattering teeth as she lay recovering on the floor. She was looking at a pile of ash in the middle of the room.

“Banishing the specter.” Clio replied shortly.

She could have explained herself. She could have told Daphne that the most efficient way to banish what they had fought was to find the bones of the deceased and burn them. She could have explained that Specters always apparated facing directly toward their own corpses. She could have measured out the exact distance that specters materialize in relation to their remains.

Though when she opened her mouth again to explain it all to Daphne, Clio felt a trembling rise up her throat. It threatened to overwhelm her. Instead, she clamped her lips shut and stroked Daphne’s hair. She would explain it all in a moment.

“Is it done? Was that the monster?” Daphne asked.

“I don’t think so.” Clio whispered.

As Clio knelt on the floor and brushed Daphne’s hair, she tried not to pay attention to the sensation that crept up her spine and the backs of her arms. The sensation that told her something was watching them. Something evil.

Clio tried to conjure a crooked smile that was meant to be reassuring. From the way Daphne closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, Clio knew her smile was anything but. Slowly Daphne sat up. She propped herself against a wall and looked around the room.

“Let’s open one of these windows and get out of here. I don’t mean to sound grim, but there’s no way that girl’s mother survived this house longer than we have.” Daphne said, massaging her tail and then her legs quickly until the sensation returned.

“We tried.” Kai motioned toward the windows and walls which were scuffed and marred by their attempts.

Daphne looked around and noticed the damage to the room anew. Slowly she raised herself and inspected the room carefully. The Tainted scrutinized her surroundings with a methodical care that reminded Clio of a priestess in temple. This was Daphne’s Pantheon. Every lock and crevice a god to silently pray to before paying her respects to the next.

Finally, Daphne exited the room, but only for a moment. She returned with the mannequin’s bronze sword. She wedged it firmly into a windowsill and pressed all her weight against it. For a moment nothing happened. Daphne looked over to Kai.

“Give me a hand.” She said.

Once he approached, the two of them placed their hands carefully on the sword. The complexion of their arms, woven around each other to secure solid purchase, reminded Clio of the sunrise they had witnessed while leaving Illios.

The pink of Daphne’s Tainted skin and the blue of Kai’s. Clio said a quick prayer to Veisu, the War Maiden, robed in her battle gown, fashioned from an active volcano, and Atala, the Sea Guardian, armed with staff and conch. Clio had been sure that sunrise had been a sign from the Gods, a sign that all would be well. Now, inside a Vampire’s realm of mist and despair, she wondered if it hadn’t been a warning.

There was a wrenching noise. For a moment, as Daphne and Kai’s bodies dropped toward the ground, Clio thought they had succeeded. However, the window remained closed. The bronze sword clattered to the ground with a sick dissonance. It lay bent at an obtuse angle. Daphne swore and Kai made his way back to the bedroom door to resume his watch. Daphne looked helplessly at Clio.

“It’s powerful Weave.” Clio said.

“How do we get rid of it?” Daphne asked.

Clio shrugged. “I don’t know. I think we may have to keep going.”

The Triumvirate met each other’s eyes solemnly. They gathered their belongings and with a grim determination as Clio checked their injuries one last time. It was with great reluctance that they moved back out onto the second-floor landing. This time Clio took point. Shield raised; she opened the remaining three doors on the level.

Each door she opened with the utmost care. Daphne and Kai positioned themselves behind her shield, ready for whatever threat awaited them on the other side. On this floor, however, there were no more threats. Just a cleaning cupboard, a servant’s room with two bunks and a children’s bedroom.

With silent gestures, Clio led the Triumvirate up the stairs that led to the third floor. Without Daphne showing them where to place their feet, the wood groaned uneasily with every step. By the time they reached the third floor, it had released a medley of mournful moans that most certainly had alerted everything in the house to their exact whereabouts.

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The musty scent that lingered in the air seemed to grow thicker the higher they climbed. More doors awaited them when they reached the third-floor landing. Clio wanted no part in opening them. She wanted to leave this hell house that had almost taken the lives of the two people she loved most in the world. She stood silent for a moment and prayed for a way out.

“Clio.” Kai whispered from behind her as she stood silent and still.

The morale of the group was already low and stopping to pray against their helplessness didn’t seem to boost the mood. Clio nodded and moved toward one of the doors. The handle was fashioned into a screaming face that stared up at her in horror.

It took all her resolve to reach out and grasp it. As she turned, the metal lock wailed painfully. Clio shoved the door open as she could feel her compatriots grimacing behind her at the noise.

A master bedroom sprawled out before them, taking up half the space of the third floor. A huge, mahogany, four-poster bed stood proudly against one wall. The rest of the furnishings in the room were designed to match. All carved with abstract motifs that seemed to elicit a shudder from each of them as they walked into the room.

Kai and Clio kept watch at the door as Daphne quickly cased the bed chamber. When she returned, she was tucking a small jewelry box into her backpack. Kai smiled grimly while Clio looked at the Tainted in surprise.

“What?” Daphne asked. “I think a little redistribution of wealth is perfectly acceptable in this situation.”

Clio shook her head but said nothing. Her blonde hair tied back with a leather thong, bobbed about her shoulders. They moved past a washroom, opening the door only briefly before Clio reluctantly opened the last door.

The face carved into the handle this time was a visage of furious rage. Clio steadied her hand and swung the thing open as quickly as she could. It was all she could do to not to prolong the sound of angry hinges rubbing against one another.

All this time a prickling sensation that ran up Clio’s spine and the backs of her arms was growing steadily stronger. She couldn’t help but look over her shoulder to make sure nothing was watching her. She noticed Daphne and Kai were doing the same.

The blessing they held while facing the last Specter was that Clio had seen it appear. She knew in which direction to rush to find the remains. If one were to form out of the aether, outside of her vision…she never wanted to fight a creature like that under those circumstances.

The room they moved into was a dim, windowless space. A heavy desk and chair sat in the center of the room. The walls were lined with shelves, packed floor to ceiling with books that ranged a huge number of topics, both fact and fiction. Clio looked out the door at the rest of the third floor. They had reached the end of the line.

No more stairs raised higher. No more doors stood shut. There was nothing else to explore and worst of all, there was no sign of a way out. The three of them seemed stuck in this terrible house. Even hope was slipping from her grasp, and all the prayers she had sent had done not one thing to change it.

Clio looked back into the room. Kai was poring over the desk, apart from a strange key, he didn’t seem to have found anything noteworthy. Daphne was leafing through the bookshelves. How she had any interest in literature at that time, Clio could not understand.

Kai looked up at Clio. He had noticed Daphne too. She could see the confusion on his face, and he could see the hopelessness in hers. They both turned to the Tainted, curving dark horns and nervously flicking tail scanning the spines of countless tomes.

Clio was about to speak. She was about to tell her friend that books couldn’t save them. That it wasn’t the time for knowledge, it was the time for might. It was the time for power to beat down the doors, and walls, and windows that hemmed them in. It was the time to force their way into the world outside.

Clio had her mouth open to say all this as Daphne finally reached out to grasp a book. She pulled it gingerly toward her. Suddenly, the bookshelf she was standing before swung open. It swung smooth and quiet. There was no mournful wailing or angry screech as hinges rubbed against one another. Only silence. Daphne turned back to the other two.

“I think I missed something in the other room.” She said before entering the secret door she had just opened.

Clio looked at Kai dumbfounded. By the visible gap between his lips, she could tell he was just as surprised. Clio followed Daphne around the corner to see her already in the process of a careful and methodical investigation.

It was a tiny room or a large cupboard, Clio couldn’t decide. More books were lined along one wall, a cursory glance showed them to be filled with summoning rituals for creatures of several origins, from fiend, to demon, to devil. Along with those titles, there were several tomes on necromancy. Clio felt bile rise in the back of her throat.

Daphne’s lithe figure stood over a chest on the far side of the room. A shape was hunched over the heavy wooden container. It looked like a person. Clio assumed it had to be the mother until she moved closer. It was a skeleton. Bleached bones and fraying leather armor.

“How long does it take a body to decompose like that?” Kai asked Clio.

She took a careful look over the corpse. “In this environment? Years.”

Daphne sucked through her teeth. “Why would this family let the stench of a corpse linger in their house for years?”

Clio shifted the corpse off the chest. It fell to the side with a short clatter as the skeleton shattered. Whatever sinew remained to hold it together broke, it collapsed into a pile of bones.

Clio noticed the lid of the chest was still wedged ajar by the skeleton’s forearm. She gently lifted the lid. The skeletal hand was wrapped around a letter.

“Great. Another letter.” Daphne groaned.

As Clio pried the letter from the skeletal hand, Daphne asked Kai to keep watch. The seal on the back was familiar. It was the same seal as she found on the letter that the emissary had given her 4 nights ago.

Somehow, enjoying drinks in that tavern felt like another lifetime. What Clio would have given to be back there now. She prayed a fanciful, childish prayer for her goddess to whisk them all back there now. Her prayer went unanswered.

Gently, she pried the envelope open. The handwriting was familiar now that Daphne had pointed out the differences. Unlike the other letter they read from this author, the new letter held no praise or honorifics. It was cold and derisive and cruel.

“Wretch,

No matter how many prayers you offer, how many souls you bleed on your altar, how much pain you cause in my name; I shall not answer. Though I do find humour in your pathetic grovelling, I shall never give you what you seek.

Your deeds have broken the trust of those you hold most dear. You have driven all in this house to madness. A madness so potent, that it will continue from this life through to the next. Just know, I would not save you, even if I could.

Make your final sacrifice. Though I know you are too weak to follow through. It is most entertaining to watch you writhe in the dirt like the worm you are.

Your everlasting torment,

Anax Archelios of Bris”

A cold washed over Clio then. A cold so potent that she felt it threaten to force the warmth of hope from her Lens. The cold clawed at the back of her mind, just as the fog had on the lonely road to the village of Bris. The cold whispered something softly to her, and the part of her that heard walled itself off and locked itself away lest it poison the rest of her soul.

Clio clamped her eyes shut and she prayed. She prayed hard like she was praying one of her companions back to life. She gripped her holy symbol and silently she screamed to her Goddess to take her safely away from all of this. She prayed for time to rewind. She prayed to be back in that tavern, four nights ago, enjoying wine, and mirth, and good company.

She prayed so hard that she was sure she would incite her miracle. Though, when slowly her thick eyelashes fluttered open, all she could see was a cramped space and death laying at her feet.