Darkness

Darkness           Chapter 75    Spirits of Flesh and Ice

          

Keylyn was gone. He had disappeared into oblivion, which meant he was back again in the hands of the evil master of the fortress.  Stolen away by some malevolent magick force then transported to another place. To get him back they needed to go on and do what needed to be done. The party gathered before the opening to the shattered, broken ice covered room. Not one of the companions looked forward to traipsing through the treacherous rubble with its sharp metal rods, even sharper ice shards. But they’d do it even though, there was high likelihood of them falling and getting hurt while crossing to the other side of the dangerous room. The companion's were resolved to do it, if it put them one step closer to getting Keylyn back.

Just as they lined up to enter the unsafe room in the middle of the corridor, they were shocked to a complete stop, by a loud explosion accompanied by prolific discharge of lightning-like sparks. This time it came not from the room they were about to enter, but from the other end of the corridor with the huge double doors with their massive padlock. The party all turned their heads nearly at the same time to find the pair of huge wooden doors standing wide open, their huge iron pad lock laying free by it self several yards away down the corridor still glowing red hot, giving off wild sparks in every direction. Beyond the now open double doors there appeared scores of brightly burning torches visible down the length of the wide elaborately furnished hallway. There was not a single sign of any elf assassins or guardsmens in sight.

Now, they had a choice of directions to take, but which one was the right one that wouldn’t get them killed? Either way could lead to more filthy traps or more bloody physical ambushes. For the moment they all seemed stymied as to what to do. Even a slumped over brooding melancholy Darkness wasn’t talking or reacting to the situation. He was left stunned into a bitter numb silence at the loss of his Key, once again. He seemed so, momentarily, out of it that Drakk the Demon stood unnatural close to him, in an effort to keep him up and moving on his feet.

This recent arrangement left a very frighten Feles the x-whore and part time thief all on his own. A situation he wasn’t really happy about. Not at all, the truth was he felt a bit deserted by his demon lover.  Especially, since he was spooked enough already, for he couldn’t rid himself of the sensation of being watched, that to, a muffled, low, indistinct disembodied voice whisper off and on in his ear. And  a faint shadow of some thing hovering close by just out of the range of his sight.  Was this ancient fortress of evil, full of ghosts or spirits, remnants of the fortress' Elf Vampire Master's many cruel debaucheries? It wouldn’t surprise Fe at all. Why, now, was the huge doors suddenly opened by magick now? Why had the elf lord’s purposely destroying his own protection?  Were they about to be attacked again by more unknown horrors?  Feles fucking hated it, when he had more questions then answers. Too many dubious "whys" in his life always made him more than a bit nauseous  and, of course, he didn’t know the reason that was, either? 

Feles with his new sword drawn, actually, it wasn’t so new any more. He had seriously blooded it on several or more occasions, since Drakk gave it to him. Then all at once out of the blue, without a word to others, because, he was just so abysmally tired of fucking waiting around for anything to happen. He found himself dashing down the corridor right through the double doors in to the other newly revealed lighted part of fortress.  Had he did it just on instinct? Or were ghostly voices sublimely ordering him to do it, saying that it was the safest way to go? Then he stood waiting to see what would happen next. After, several minutes when nothing happened, he madly waved back to the others to following him.  They all stood looking at him hesitantly as if they had some doubt about his independent decision. So he cried out loud and madly, “ Fucking come on we don’t have all night, there is even a possibility that we might catch up to Keylyn if we hurry!” Just as he finished calling out to them, he swore he felt a gentle cold hand patting him on the shoulder or was it just his imagination? Shivering from the odd sensation he wondered if there were good ghosts or spirit too, for certainly there was nothing hostile in the contact?  It seemed, almost, friendly.



Ooooo

Finally, the rest of the party decided to follow Feles timidly through the huge double wooden doors, but they purposely stood well back from him and let him lead the way. That was just so swell, he sneered with a sarcastic laugh to himself. It was almost like they all to took a universal vote and they decided to let the worthless whore lead, and be the hero for a change.  Smirking, Feles was not amused, he would be perfectly happy to remain in the background and let one of the others show the way. But no one stepped up to do the deed and he was simply too tired of waiting. After all poor Keylyn might be just around the corner, hurting in the worst way, if they could only get to him in time before he was further damaged or abused?



Feles cursed them all under his breath, and set off at steady sprint, while he listened intently for any signs of the monstrous elf master, and his cruel minions, and any stray assassin patrols, which might be lurking in wait to ambush them. Just as Fe turned the next corner in corridor he came across another closed wooden door, but this time the door was much smaller and didn’t appeared to locked or padlocked in any way. Some thing told Feles if he wanted that door open he was going half to do it him self for no volunteers were forthcoming from his companions.  Luckily, he discovered a very long, rusty spear or lance decorating one wall, which gave him idea how to open the door.  He quickly knock it from its display hooks using the tip of his sword. It fell to the floor with a loud crash, but thankfully it remained intact and didn’t fall to rusty pieces.

Picking up the spear, Feles proceed to plan how he was going to open the door.   He headed back to the contingent of dwarf cross bowmen.  He ask, “So which of you little buggers are the best marksman and able to hit what they aim at. ”  When several or more of the dwarfs nodded agreement, he insistently started to drag one after other of the small men bodily into areas in front of door. Moving them like pawns on a chessboard, until he had four in position around the door. “Don’t shoot at anyone or anything unless it comes charging out of the room after you with blood in its eyes seeking your death.  But first let me get in there and see what I can find, just be sure you don’t shoot me when I come back out!” 

Feles started toward the door to try and open it from distance with the spear tip. The door miraculously swung opened slowly, all by itself, on its squeaky, rusty, ancient hinges until it stood was wide open, ‘Damn fucking Ghosts! Stop that! You’re making me look like a fool in front of my companions and that’s just wrong!’ Thought, Feles, loudly to his invisible helping haunt or was it haunts. Then Feles swore he felt a warm breath of air blow against his cheek and soft lips make brief contact and then draw back quickly and then came a low ghostly giggle only he could hear. He whirled around and reached out, but of course, he only grabbed air. A faint familiar scent hung in the air, which somehow reminded him of the missing Key. And that quickly brought Fe back to the present, he dropped the unneeded spear drew his sword, and charged into the room to see what he would find. Preying to the all gods that he would find Keylyn alive inside.

It was only matter of a few minutes, when Feles came staggering back out of the room in deep distress. He quickly grabbed the stonewall for support outside of the room he had just exited, then purposely turned away from his companions and proceeded to puke violently against the base of wall ‘til there was nothing left inside him.  Horror of what he saw and smelled inside the room, almost made him loose his mind as well as the contents of his stomach.  Barely living or already dead, emaciated bodies by the dozens of a varied mixed assorted of humans, elves, dwarfs and even a few others their races, that he didn’t even recognize, all of them hung by their ankles down from the roof of the room on brutal hooks, as their life’s blood slowly drained away, dripping from horrible cuts in their slashed throats to drain into full or partially full, buckets below.  Feles stood there still gasping and shaking wildly from the sights and smells of an utterly malevolent sensory overload that made him want to scream until he couldn't scream anymore. But, somehow, he managed to restrain himself from screaming and gradually got himself under some degree of control.

Without warning, all at once, a furious wind again blow up out of nowhere and the air crackled with paranormal energy then something invisible and unseen passed very close by the shaken, chilled Feles. The x-whore and part time thief sworn, again, he heard a low groans of horror and disgust as something passed by him.  Then the room of horrors was consumed, unexpectedly, in a hot purifying conflagration of explosive of fire and flame, until nothing was left in the room but a hot fine layer of pale smoldering ashes.

Luckily, just before the fire became so intense that a wave of heat exploded out through the door and into the corridor toward him, two quick pairs of hands grabbed hold of Feles and dragged him safely out of the way of the fire, heat and possible injury. When he looked he found himself staring into the eyes of both Drakk and Seer’ Reign. They clutched him tightly with looks of confusion and disbelief on their horrified faces, as if they had caught him doing something unusual or mystifying.

It was Darkness that spoke up first,  “Feles what did you do to make that happen? I wasn’t aware you had such magic abilities. Are you keeping secrets from us?”

“Damn it, that vileness in there… it surely needed to be done! Inside that room was a horror beyond all imagining. But my Lord of Darkness, it wasn’t me, I have no such magical talents like that. I promise you.  I think the castle ghosts are the one's doing it. I felt them close to me for a while now, and several times they even spoke to me. ”

“Fe, are you mad? Ghosts rarely manifest such strong elemental power as that! Drakk you better take care of the boy, he not well, perhaps, he needs to be watched closely, for his mind is starting to shatter all to pieces from horror and stress. He might go mad at any minute. It's time, I pulled myself together, and lead the party like I should be doing. Not, leave the responsibility up to others. Sorry, just for a time I was so upset and unhappy at the lose of my little elf for the second time. I foolishly lost myself in grief and I wholly shut down!

Ooooo

“It was the ghosts I tell you! Who did it! Darkness you got to believe me. I am not anywhere near mad or crazy. I tell you something supernatural is following us and its even trying to help us!” Shouted out Fe crossly, at being accused of something that wasn’t true.

“Hush boy! Calm down! I’ll take over from here and lead the way, so you can relax compose yourself, and get your emotions under control. Please try not thinking about such ridiculous notions about ghosts. Obviously, magic is in play some way; we just have to figure out how and why? I decided we are going to take a small rest and a breather for twenty or thirty minute before continuing on. We haven’t had a break for a very long time. So everyone sit down and rest your feet and back, drink some water, have bite of something to eat even if it’s only a bit of hardtack dried meat or cheese. We will need the energy, for soon, something tells me we still have several more battles to fight.

“Rest my ass, Darkness, we still have Keylyn to save. Or have you so conveniently forgotten that fact. He is still in the hands of that awful monster! Have you decided you don’t care any more because it’s just too much trouble? Well I am not resting. I am going on, with or without the rest of you!” A young stubborn Feles bellowed irately, then he started to stalk away in a rage and disappeared down the corridor ignoring the rest of party the dwarfs and humans both, who had quickly sunk wearily to their knees on the floor in an effort to get comfortable for a brief time.

Drakk, after a long thirty minute past and no sigh of the boy, was just about to go in search of the missing Fe. When the youth returned at a panicked run, out of breath, shouting breathlessly as he approached,  “ Elf patrols coming fast, and it’s a big one, get ready!”  Drakk roughly grabbed hold of Feles with both huge fists and shook him with an unspoken question in this furiously brightly burning scarlet non-human eyes.   

“No! NO! Damn-it! I saw no sign of Keylyn, he didn’t appear to be with the patrols!”

Already, Darkness was carefully arranging the Dwarf cross bowmen, so they were, in the best position to do the most damage when elf patrol turned the corner in the corridor.

Ooooo

Then had no more than got in position for the attack, when the first wave of the screaming attacker rounded the corner in the corridor and dwarves released their crossbow bolts simultaneously, taking out every elf in front so they fell in nice fairly neat piles that acted as barrier for the next wave. The dwarves stepped back to reload, Darkness moved to the forefront to take their place in battle, He conjured to life and juggling a good number of fireballs in readiness.  Instantly, more yelling elf swordsmen swarmed forward jumping over their fallen comrades to attack the party immediately the majority where taken out by Darkness’ fireballs, which resulted in less than a dozen or so of the elves actually reaching then, and engaging in direct combat with Drakk, Feles, the dwarf queen, and her sword and axed welding bodyguards.

Drakk ruthless and energetically took on 3 or 4 elves with his huge long swords seemingly without any trouble. Then he held on, furiously, to steadily eliminating further attackers one after the other with little or no effort, leaving his enemies fall in a neat bloody pile all around his feet.

A terrified Feles agilely somehow plodded on stubbornly with his less than profession sword work, yet manage to holding his own against two attackers who had charged him simultaneously. His luck held out when one of elf’s he was fighting tripped over the body of another dead elf. Fe, quickly, took advantage of situation and reduced the number of his assailants to a single one with a quick slash of his sword. As the young fierce thief fought he start to grow more confident and sure with his sword swings until his last foe lay dead and headless at his feet.

Then without pause, Feles, looked about diligently for another adversary to defeat and stood breathing hard. The entire enemy for the moment seemed to be account for, even the watchful dwarf crossbow men were once more loaded and ready for action if they were need.

While the little dwarf queen and her bodyguard despite their size, worked as a well-organized team to take out the remaining elf attackers with their unnaturally practiced skills. One dwarf would hamstring an elf a swordsman while another would finishing the job by relieving him quickly of his head with heavy looking ax. A bit messy, thought

Fe, but it seemed to work for them.

A pause in the action allowed Darkness, with his hand on his sword, to turn back away from the forefront of the action and step off to side out of harms way. At the presently, his magick was exhausted and non-existent until he had more time to rest.  The wizard again motion for the dwarves with their crossbows take up the main position. Silently, everyone waited, on pens and needles, impatient,  for the next wave of enemy to arrive. Or was that it?   There wouldn’t be any further attacks for now.  Actually, it almost seemed too easy. To easy, always meant more danger. It was unwritten law of the gods!

A blood curdling scream, indicated their waiting was over, for another attack by charging swordsmen headed in their way. But this time there seem to be a greater number of enemy than there was before. It was totally impossible for the usually accurate cross bowmen to handle them all, even though they tried very hard and never gave up some of the little men went down bravely losing their lives fighting to the very last. Instantly, Darkness was attacked by 5 or 6 elves.  Somehow, he managed to hold his own and stay alive even though he was being pushed to the very limit. Feles and Drakk both tried to fight their way forward to help Darkness but they were blocked by a densely packed wave of Elf’s swordsmen that made it quite impossible to get through the crowd to help him.

Suddenly, a cold howling wind began to blow violently up and down the length of the corridor and loud strange shouted words echoed painfully off the walls of the corridor and then a good number of the enemy began to freeze and stiffen then fall, right before their eyes, even as the elves endeavored to keep fighting they were quickly being diminished by the freezing spell. Fe’s ears rang painfully from the shouting screaming voices.

Feles' present opponent suddenly fell before him his flesh frozen solid and he hit the ground with shattering sound, that so groused out the young thief it made him refuse to look down and see the terrible results.  Instantly, Fe had feeling that this was the work of his ghostly spirit friends for he looked over and saw Darkness valiantly with his sword trying to protect the tiny Dwarf Queen station behind him. That’s when Feles noticed an elf slowly stalking up behind the wizard and little queen and so far that elf had yet to be affected by the spell or curse or whatever the hell it was?  Fe tried to fight his way through the melee all around him but was halted, there was not way he could reach them in time. Then he grabbed one his throwing knives from his boot and let it fly, almost without thinking, send it directly at stalking elf! Instantly, the elf fell with a ghastly screaming cry with the handle of Fe's blade sticking out of his left eye socket. The dead elf fell with loud noisy crash right behind Darkness and Queen. They very brief looked up at him in unbelief and shock. Then once again they all were back to fighting for their lives. For still a good number of their elfin enemies were left and they were joined yet, again, by another group of fresh elf attackers.

Again out of nowhere came another ghostly inhuman shrieking voice that conjured up even more deadly cold devastating power, along with it came the howling of a strong freezing supernatural wind. This was a very selective freezing wind for it was totally aimed at the elves. Not a single one of the companions were touched. Very soon all the elves start to fall even before the companion's swords made contact, as the gradual ice steadily built up consuming them and freezing them solid, hard as statues, and then finally a single harsh conjured inhuman cry caused them to shatter all at once into tiny brittle pieces of flesh and ice, until not a one of the enemy elves was left standing or alive.

A hand on Feles shoulder made him turn to find a breathless shaking Darkness staring at him, his black eyes full of disbelief, his mouth clinched with fatigue and stress. Then in a tired low voice he spoke. Fe expected his usually loud mocking sarcasm, but instead he was shocked and surprised to hear a soft apologetic trembling voice come from the wizard that he never heard before not ever, “Feles, boy, I owe you an apology, your not crazy and your absolutely right, we’re not alone, something in this castle is helping us. We would have never made it through that last series of melees, without the help of your powerful supernatural ghosts, spirits, or whatever they are. Please the next time they talk to you ask them, if they know where my Keylyn is?  You’re right, too, that we need to find him soon before that hell spawn monster El-lissinnor destroys and consumes him just for the fun it. ”

Fe, momentarily, was left speechless by the wizard’s odd new attitude so for a minute he didn’t know how to reply at first, but then he made it short and sweet for the most important thing was to find Keylyn alive and save him from that beastly elf.

“Darkness, I accept your apology, now lets go find Keylyn. And if my spirit voices return I will be certain to ask them!”  As Fe followed Darkness back to the others, he was startled by a ghostly pat on the shoulder, then it was followed by a much longer tender kiss on his lips, which forced him to come to sudden a stop several steps behind Darkness, as invisible arms embrace him and held on to him tightly, but Darkness continued to walk on, completely unaware of what was going on behind him. When the invisible lips lifted from him and the unseen arms freed him, he quickly whispered,  “Please, most powerful spirit, please tell me, if you no where our friend Keylyn is, we miss him, love him, and want him back before the evil master of the castle decides to destroy him, again I beg you? Please help us! ” He waited for the voice to whisper in his mind or ear, but the only thing that came to him was a strange, half-mad, hysterical giggle, that was no help at all. Just for a minute, an indignant Fe had the righteous impulse to throttle the uncooperative ghost or spirit…as if he could, until it spilled the truth or whatever it knew. Apparently, said, playful spirit could also read his mind too, for it giggled even harder and louder in his mind, but refused to answer him.

A furious, Fe, stalked away from the spirit presence and joined Darkness and the others where they briefly rested, recovering from the fighting. Before they finally continued on and upward to the next level of the fortress. He would ask or plead with the powerful inhuman spirit again later, maybe, it would be more merciful and cooperative next time, at least, he hoped it would be!