“ Healer! ”
“Lowya?!” Appo called out. He wasn’t sure how he heard her, or even where he was. Everything was black. “Are you really there?!”
The void expanded, and Appo found himself back in the field of flowers. Only this time, the sky was bright blue. It reminded Appo of Ash.
“ Whatever you’ve done, it’s working! Have you succeeded? ”
Appo looked around the endless field for Lowya. He heard her voice everywhere, coming from all directions. “Things didn’t go exactly to plan,” he sighed. “There’s not enough of us left. I’ve even lost my way into the Temple.”
“ It’s not about how many! Even now, I can see your city much more clarity! ”
“Can you control the plague?” Appo asked. He looked up to the sky, hearing a voice so expansive could not register to his brain. It was as if every blade of grass was talking to him. “Is it enough?”
“ Hmph, not quite. There is still opposition. Singular, but strong. Somewhere in the Temple. ”
Appo frowned. He recalled the shrine that greeted him when he first arrived, the monstrous amalgamation of corpses. Based on what Jere and Adok had told him, he had an idea who it could be. Even here in this dream-like world, Appo felt his wounded arm ache in pain.
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“The one in the Temple will not be convinced,” Appo said. “He is too far gone.”
“ Very well. Kill him ”
“What?” Appo felt rumbling underneath his feet, but he kept his gaze up to the sky.
“ If you wish for me to stop this plague, the opposition must be removed ”
Appo recalled how angry he'd been when Juddken sliced off his hand. He shuddered with horror at the stories Jere and Adok told him, how Juddken had been terrorizing those within the Manor for weeks before he arrived. Juddken was a monster in every sense of the word. If anyone deserved death, it was him.
But Appo wouldn't have become a Healer if he believed that. “Is there no other way?” he asked.
Lowya didn't respond. Instead, the ground erupted beneath Appo, a pile of dirt growing until a sandstone structure pierced the grass. He recognized it as the Great Temple, its golden top reflecting the sunlight. The Temple rose into the air, far beyond its initial four stories. The tiers fanned out into a column, rising faster and faster. It quickly grew to twenty stories and beyond, blocking out the sun.
This was what the Temple truly was, in all its glory.
It all vanished, and Appo found himself on a flight of finely carved stairs. The stairs descended into nothingness both above and below him, carving into each side of the wall in a square formation. He walked down the stairs before he again found himself at the edge of a wall. The number “twenty-three” seared into his mind.
Appo was then in the throne room where Lowya had sent him. It was perfectly lit, as if an impossible sun shined through the slits in the walls. In the very center was a small podium, curving upward into a spiral that reminded him of a neck.
Appo reached around his own and pulled off the necklace. He would just have to place it there. Once he did, he could begin the consecration.
A hand grasped his shoulder. Appo turned in fright, finding Juddken. He was smiling, having used Appo’s own severed hand to grip his shoulder. Appo screamed.