[Womb of the Dark Mage]

Chapter 32 / 12

Labour of Love and Madness

Richard took a deep breath as they crossed the threshold into another damn tunnel. It twisted like the inside of a screw, where the grooves were stuffed with tentacle carvings. Not singular, bulging ones, but bundles of them that spilled out with life-like realism. He was pretty sure they were stone, but he’d sooner turn back than touch them to find out.

Worse were the faint echoes from the depths and the eyes. The beady eyes carved at random intervals, heights and angles did, without question, turn to watch them pass. He could hear the stone grinding as they swivelled. That, or he was going crazy, and so was everyone else.

“Alright, I’ll say it,” Geoff suddenly announced. “This is some freaky Warbinger shit. Right, Rick? I don’t know if you even saw the big one, but those little ones… eyes and tentacles man, you saw it.”

“Yeah,” he answered. They did remind him of the things on the Leviathan Train. For all he could tell, the tentacle carvings spilling from the walls could come to life any moment and devour them all. Or whatever they did. Turn them into thralls?

The tunnel grew wider the farther in they went. The echoed whispers, faint cries and muffled voices grew louder. Richard didn’t like any of them. The maarte’s cry was bone-chilling as always, but the others sapped the strength from him just hearing the echoes.

Another echo came, like the laughter of a madman in the night. Distant, eerie, sickening.

Geoff lit his Flame Drive. “Banshee,” he said. “Last one was crying about its baby. Thought it was going to make my brain explode.”

“You survived a banshee?” Lamet said thoughtfully. “I wonder if this is an effect of Sparlyset’s Warmth.”

“It is soothing,” Geoff waved Lamet back. “Let me take this out.” He took point, but it was a few minutes before the tunnel uncurled into the walls of a new chamber. At least they weren’t going down anymore.

Richard flinched when the MGS suddenly released a blast of flame. He looked just in time to see the banshee wheeze as it disintegrated.

“Rest in peace, asshole,” Geoff said under his breath.

The chamber was an expansion of the tunnel. Spiralling, tentacle-filled walls, bulging eyes, and creeping echoes. But there were ruins here. Collapsed square buildings of dark stone moulded over protruded at crooked angles from the stone.. He recognised a well with another banshee stumbling around it, weeping. The moment the Flame Drive was done recharging Geoff blasted it.

“Even I fear banshees, Geoff,” Lamet said quietly. “What happened that made you so confident in facing them?”

“It died when I shot it in the face,” he said bluntly. “That doesn’t mean I’m not afraid, but I know how to deal with them so I’ll keep my cool and do that until there’s none left.”

“I see.”

It almost looked like a settlement built into a quarry, but now everything was so warped that only the most obvious structures could be recognized. The next banshee wandered near what could have been a fountain. From a distance, the sounds they made were like pinpricks in his mind, or even his bones, but approaching them even a bit made the pain much worse very, very quickly. They paused to wait for the Flame Drive.

The banshee spoke to itself. Richard bent over and held his head as the words drained conscious thought from his head like a gaping wound. Lamet was similarly disabled, curling her tail around her legs and crouching into a ball with her hands on her ears.

Geoff just cocked his head and blasted it. “I hate when they talk. It’s always about kids. What the hell happened to their babies?”

Richard couldn’t remember what it had said, even though he was sure he heard it clearly. Maybe it was better that Sparlyset remained unconscious for now.

Lamet rose shakily to her feet. “I could…” she shook her head. “I could imagine a horrible enough death of a child could drive a mother to a wailing grave, but so many? These women are banshees because they died screaming their very souls to shreds from despair. It… it is unheard to see more than one.”

Richard didn’t want to voice his thoughts. That they might have been sacrificed for the Rite of Dark.

The Riteweaver held her head. She kept shaking it as though trying to dislodge something. “I hate this place,” she said. “Beyond the obvious horrors, it fills my mind with dark thoughts. Like the evil of this place is whispering, trying to influence my actions.”

“Whispering what?” Richard asked.

Lamet turned her palm down. “I feel like I should not say. It… surely not. Sparlyset… she took the Rite of Dragons that should be mine.”

“No she didn’t. You know she didn’t. We’ll do what we can to get you the Rite as soon as we can, Lamet. Right?” Richard put a hand on her shoulder.

“I know,” She put her hand on his and held it for a moment before brushing it off. “It barely bothers me. But why, Geoff? Goeff has no Rites that I do not know of, so why does it whisper of Geoff keeping secret Rites from me?” Lamet held her elbows and shook. Her words became slurred as she hissed through her teeth. “He is not here, so what is in my head? Why would Geoff do this?”

Geoff stopped walking.

Her head hung low as she turned and looked at him.

“I have a new Rite,” he said.

Lamet growled, showing one of her fangs.

“I’ll teach it to you on two conditions,” he continued.

Her tail lashed the ground.

“One, is that you wait until we’re out of here. Two, is that you give me a hug right now. You look like you need it.”

“How dare you?” she hissed.

He took a step towards her, and she grabbed her iron sword in one hand. The other still clutched Illuminate tightly.

“Something in here is messing with you.” Geoff let go of his gun and held out his arms. “I wonder if the same thing happened to your brother. You gonna end up like him, Lamet? You gonna kill some kids? Or are you going to kill what’s making your brother into a monster? Are you going to listen to its voice over mine?”

Lamet radiated hostility like a feral cat, thrashing the ground with her tail and growling as he approached her.

He put his arms around her slowly, easing her into a tight embrace.

Her growling stammered and turned into a whimper. “Help me, Geoff,” she cried.

Geoff held her head against his shoulder with the other on her back. Her arms relaxed, and her tail curled around them both. But Geoff was looking around the room, subtly, barely turning his head. “We’re stronger than this place,” he said in a comforting voice.

Realising what he was doing, Richard stopped watching them and started scanning the room. He started with the ceiling, which he could barely see, as he remembered the monster in the train. It looked no different than the grooves on the floor and walls. He couldn’t see any other ghosts, or hear any banshees. Just the distant wail of the newborn.

There had to be something whispering in Lamet’s head. Like Warbinger’s laughter, that Sparlyset said let him read your mind the moment your fear of him influenced your actions. Maybe that was why Geoff’s Safety Hug was effective. For Marinda, it guarded against the monsters in the closet, but for Lamet it put her back in control of herself, and kept the voices out of her head.

But that meant there was a monster hiding in the ruins connected to Warbinger somehow.

Lamet might need Geoff to keep on holding her, so finding the damn thing fell to him. He drew the Painkiller and clicked on his light.

He checked every corner on both sides carefully before moving forward, so progress was slow. There were broken buildings scattered everywhere. It reminded him of the narrow imitation city streets in the Leviathan Train. He checked the fountain just in case, but it wasn’t deep enough to conceal anything. His footsteps echoed in eerie silence as he walked around it.

All he needed to do was draw it out and survive long enough for Geoff to blast it. He kept repeating the plan in his head as if there were a chance it would make him feel better.

Richard… Elliot… The voice whispered in his head, distinctly feminine.

Piss off, he thought.

Geoff Friction… covets your strength… your freedom… your mantira… he will betray you.

Pathetic, he thought. You think Geoff would rather have my freedom than his family? You don’t know shit about Geoff.

I see all… your thoughts… his thoughts… what he does not share…

One building was too intact for him to see inside. The walls were broken as though ready to collapse, but dark goo oozed from between the broken stones and held them together. It was big and rectangular. It could have been a town hall, a library… a hospital? If Geoff doesn’t share something with me it’s because I don’t need to know.

Richard kept his light and pistol trained on the building while he nodded back to Geoff. His friend led Lamet across the room by the wrist. She looked incredibly distressed, but she was done freaking out. He noticed a tiny patch of shiny scales had appeared on the bridge of her nose.

He comes… to kill you… the voice whispered.

Why are you even wasting your time trying to turn us against each other? Just tell us what you want like an adult.

The voice’s composure was shaken. If I can be corrupted… then so can you… I only wanted my son to live… but… a hybrid could not… Human and puren could not survive… the Rite of Fertility was too late… but the Rite of Dark… this Rite, perfected, may see him born again… I will see it perfected… no matter how many…

This tomb is for your son? Richard thought. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but how can forcing more mothers to suffer the same thing as you bring any good to the world?

Shallow words… expressed time and again… yet somehow… The rectangular building shuddered. Goo oozed from the stones. The Rite of Dark… have I become so vile? No, it would have been worth it…

Let us put you to rest. You spent aeons failing to bring him back. All you made here was evil. Go see him in Haantisha instead of trying to bring him here.

“Rick?”

“It’s the mother,” he said. “Turned into a monster and stuck here what, thousands of years? She’s still thinking about sacrificing more children like she can’t even tell what’s real anymore. Put her out of her misery.”

Evil or not, Richard didn’t want to watch a grieving mother be put down. He had to have Geoff’s back if anything happened, so he stared at the ground and kept the building in his peripherals.

He shed a tear for her as the building detonated in three places and crumbled into the path. She spilled out of the rubble, her form bloated and disfigured. Tentacles slapped the ground in place of arms and legs. Tendrils wiggled like snakes on her head.

The mother’s body was coated in blinking eyes, but two stood out. He met them, and saw the tiniest spark of good buried deep within. Her body was vaguely recognizable as a puren’s, and Richard knew what he saw in her eye. She was a monster, guilty of unforgivable crimes and no one would argue that she needed to die. Deserved to, maybe. But…

Haantisha… is the way still open to me?

That spark in her eye, it was love. Love for her son that drove her mad.

I don’t know, Richard thought, but if there’s still love in your heart, maybe that much will make it through. When you die, he’ll know that you always loved him.

Death was one thing, but Richard couldn’t wish the death of one’s child on anyone. He shut his eyes and listened to the mother’s death.

I love you… Sunbinger.