Chapel Orahamm

The roads blended together. And the flavorless gruel that sufficed for meals around the moments of meat Quamire caught for us became somehow even more flavorless as the days stacked up to become weeks. I had learned, after one morning of Farrow snapping at Rowan, that Rugoshi were herbivorous and eating meat would make them sick if they did it for too long. He grouched back at Farrow that even the Ungulates ate small amounts of meat here and there. Farrow wasn’t putting up with it and instead took on the business of hunting with Quamire. He couldn’t dress a dwiv as cleanly, but Rowan’s complexion improved gradually after.

Farrow, hissing and annoyed, took an evening to deal with me taking notes to explain how at some point the Nine People had diverged in the ancient times. Rugoshi, Faybar, and Twilig were purely herbivorous. The rest ate meat. I sketched out the difference in Farrow and Rowan’s teeth. Farrow’s had wicked looking fangs and serrated edges along all of his, where as Rowan’s were flat, his molars resembling mammoth batteries I had seen in zoo exhibits. I had ran my tongue along my teeth and guessed at their shape, carefully sketching my impression next to theirs. Mine was something between, with a pair of upper and lower canines that could deal real damage. I spent more than one day after keenly tuning into how my skin and joints moved, how my tongue felt in my mouth, to solidly drive it into my head that I wasn’t human anymore. That I should start accepting the changes.

It was during one of these inane days of movement through what seemed to be a never ending landscape of tolerably flat forests and winding, lazy rivers that a surprise brought difference to the drudgery. That surprise being our path sinking a good distance beneath Ravur’s form. My suspicion that the creature was more related to a lizard than a horse were proven true when she shot forward across the collapsing earth and clung sideways to the wall of what turned out to be a large sinkhole. The river near by had created a subsidence and was quickly channeling itself away from the main flow.

This was, however, not what truly made this day different for us. Once Farrow and I were properly upright and no longer clinging sideways to the wall, Rowan pointed out something about the emptying river that we would have passed right on by, never aware it lay under the current. Ancient ruins.

We settled a safe distance away from the widening sinkhole to observe the mud covered walls drying in the sun. “It’s a castle, right?” I asked.

Farrow shrugged and Rowan nodded. I raised an eyebrow. “So, which is it?”

“Nothing like Karamide castles. If Rowan says it is, maybe it’s Rugoshi or Yujin from the old days?” he asked the paladin.

Rowan pressed his lips together, his brow furrowing at the structure. Shaking his head, he walked the edge of the bank to look at it from a different angle. He walked in the other direction before pointing a finger to the structure and issuing a clicked command to Quamire. The labra-dragon shot off above the mud, his wings fluttering furiously. “I don’t think it’s Rugoshi or Yujin. It might be Fan, but honestly, it reminds me of paintings of the time the Sen were regarded as holy gods.”

“Who are the Sen?” I asked, still in awe at the massive ruin. The sinkhole had collapsed toward the river, cutting off our passage back unless we side tracked through the thick under brush. From what Rowan had said, that was unwise.

“One of the Nine. They lost their magic during the dark days. Maybe this was a castle that fell then? I didn’t realize the miasma could have made it all the way into Herenhuis. It was supposed to have escaped from the great threat,” Rowan mused as he waited for Quamire to return.

“Do we need to worry about anything weird being in the castle?” I asked.

“Weird how?” Rowan asked.

“I don’t know. Manders freak you out.”

“Manders disturb me because they are residual beings from the dark time. They are an aspect of the Water Mage who forced the miasma into his water magic and out came Manders.” He folded his arms across his chest and got comfortable.

“Do they make people sick?”

He raised an eyebrow at me with that question. “No?”

“Then why do they freak you out?”

“I find them disturbing because people don’t see them unless they are near death. People lose their sight close to death and in that moment they can see them. Also they are slimy and wiggly.”

“But I see them everywhere. I guess I’m really close to dying?”

“This is why I suspect you are going to make for a very good Skull Hart. Maybe that soul swap you did with Wallace brought you close enough to death to touch the other side? That’s why you can drag Manders out of walls?” he offered.

“I would very much appreciate not seeing more Manders than I do on the regular.” Farrow held up a hand in bid.

“And why would you possibly see Manders? You aren’t sick.” I looked around Rowan’s form to the lithe man who reminded me more and more of a cat.

“You don’t have to necessarily be the one dying to see Manders. You just have to be close to the dying.”

Rowan nodded at that. “Skirmishes bring in waves of Manders.”

“Do they eat the dead or something?”

“I would say they smother them, but I don’t think that’s it. They curl up on the dead and dying’s chest until eventually they are coated with them, which by then they will have fully died,” Rowan explained. Quamire shot out of one of the low structures of the castle and flew back to us.

“So, they don’t kill or eat the dead? Then why are they gross?”

Rowan shrugged. “It’s just what they represent. Omens of death are never welcome.”

I acquiesced that. Quamire gently landed in front of Rowan, his tail wagging furiously. Rowan put a hand under the beast’s jaw. Quamire immediately dropped what he’d found. In Rowan’s hand gleamed a murky green stone set into a hand-sized, shield shaped pendant.

Farrow let out a low whistle. “Looks old. That doesn’t look Yujin. Definitely not Fan. Liffa?” He offered.

Rowan frowned harder at the clunky bit of jewelry. “No. The writing isn’t one of their languages. This has lots of loops and swirls. No. I don’t recognize this. It’s no Alber either.” He looked up at the castle. “What is this place?”

I squatted on my heels to look at the stone walls and tried to rack my brain for what the castle looked like. It wasn’t built like Latin American temples. It had something similar to pictures I had seen of the Forbidden City, but there was something that screamed India about it at the same time. Memories of travel documentaries came to mind, but it wasn’t my forte. The Yujin castle I had beenin gave me the impression of England in the Middle Ages. I didn’t think of there being castles considered ancient to an English Middle Ages person.

I shifted my filters until the stones were liquid and Manders were swimming around in it in torrents. That and something else. A large shadow sloshed behind the stones. I was waiting to see a glowing eye peak through any of the archer’s slots. Instead it continued it’s current around the first wall and turned, following the outline of the next. It proceeded like this for a time while the sun baked the mud down. At the point it had circled three times, Farrow tapped me on the shoulder. “Your eyes are glowing.” He looked ready to spring back from me. I told him what I was watching. He hissed, lips raised back to expose his fangs. “That can’t be good.”

“But Quamire didn’t alert to it.” Rowan frowned at the jewelry in his hand harder.

“Thinking about raiding the place?” I asked, watching the big shadow.

“I was, but I’m not so sure now.”

“If it acts like Manders, then maybe it’s stuck in the walls?” I offered.

“I haven’t ever heard of anything that big living in the rivers of Herenhuis.” Farrow looked to Rowan for advice.

“Can Ravur or Lis even get over there? The mud’s going to be thick and sticky, even if it looks like it’s starting to dry.”

“Lis will have to stay back, but Ravur likes mud. She’ll be fine.”

Fine? When animals like mud, they tend to roll in it. I squinted at his phrasing. “Are we all going to end up muddy?”

“By virtue of exploring a ruin, we’ll probably get muddy anyway.”

“Yo, cat-boy, do you even like water?” I deflected to Farrow with hopes that he would back me up on not going into a mud castle with some slinking orca.

“Cat-boy?” he growled.

“You don’t even know what a cat is. Stop hissing,” I matched his energy.

“It sounded disrespectful,” he retorted.

“For your information, I like cats,” I bit back.

“Still sounded disrespectful.”

“Well cat-man sounds too close to a copyright restriction.”

“A what?”

“A way that people could protect their intellectual rights to what they made like books and things. That way others couldn’t copy them.” I stood back up and let the tingles run through my feet before pulling my pack off of Ravur’s back.

“I’m not a boy,” he groused.

“That’s what got you hissy?” I pulled Farrow’s bag off and set it next to my own.

“I’ve seen enough seasons to not be considered a kit anymore.” He took Lis’s leads and tied her off to a branch near our packs, then proceeded to pull off Rowan’s pack and saddle from her. Farrow pulled a treat from one of the pouches and rubbed at Lis’s big dinosaur shaped head.

I caught Rowan staring at us under half-lids. “You going in there in full gear?” I called to him and pulled my shirt over my head. He pulled his gaze away at my suddenness and coughed. Farrow followed my lead and clambered out of his trousers, vest, and shirt. We rolled our overclothes into bundles and set them on top of our packs to keep from getting ground-damp. That left all three of us in loinclothes facing down a blazing sun. I clicked my tongue. “Gonna end up with a wicked sunburn at this rate. A’ight, let’s find out what this giant hippo-lizard can do.” I grabbed an empty bag and pulled myself up into the back saddle and looked down to see what was taking Farrow so long to follow. He and Rowan were sharing yet another of their silent conversations, this time both flicking a look my way. “What?” They rolled their shoulders in a synchronized dismissal. Rowan adjusted the stirrups in the front seat and took point. Farrow found his way onto the back leather pad that Quamire usually slept on.

Rowan clicked his tongue and Ravur stood up. Farrow’s arm snaked around my chest at the sudden movement. “Sorry.” He pulled himself close and tried to quit slipping as Ravur wiggled her way into the muddy river bank.

“You gonna be okay back there?” I grabbed his arm as he slid.

“It’s definitely not built for regular people’s riding back here.” He was learning the hard way that the section over Ravur’s back legs swung much more wildly than up front.

“Hold on tight.”

“There’s nothing here to hold on to!” He threw both arms around me at this point. His skin was making that uncomfortable sharp ripping sound sweaty thighs on leather couches in summer made.

“I can only eat so much in a day!” I shot back.

“Eat more!”

“You wanna go hunting more?” I grabbed for the pommel and clenched down on both of his wrists in a bid to keep myself and him from slipping off of Ravur. Her broad feet and wide body let her slide along the mud, but the sucking, popping sound of where she pulled herself free every few meters reminded us of our difficulty in staying on her back.

“You could learn to send Quamire after your food,” he begrudged.

“You eat more meat than I do,” I argued back.

“Both of you, give it a rest,” Rowan broke into our squabble as Ravur made it through what had once been a portcullis. Inside, protected from the slant of the sun, the temperature plummeted. A cold shiver ran down my spine. Regret at ditching my clothes hovered ever present as Ravur turned and twisted through a strange series of staged roads that curled like a serpent around a branch. Areas had low bridges, blind corners, tight spaces fit with archers slots. The damp and quiet save for the squelch of Ravur’s feet in the left over rotting mud gave way to a pit of nausea in my stomach. A cold crawling sensation scampered up my flesh. Manders wiggled in surplus about the walls. And the shadow followed.

Outbuildings had collapsed, leaving behind spongy wood and dark splotches in the mud. “How did Quamire even find that thing?” I stared a little too long at a particularly thick patch of Manders in the wall.

“Who knows.” Rowan rolled a shoulder, drawing my attention to a fine scar on his trap.

A large, flat area in front of the main palace greeted us, mud and all. But it wasn’t that which caught my attention. It was the shadow now pacing back and forth like a monstrous tiger in the water-colored stone there.

“I-” that frigid feeling spread until I was dripping with it.

Farrow let go all at once, “What’s happening to you?”

I looked down to find myself coated in a thin sheen. “I don’t feel right.”

“You’ve turned pale, and you Yujin are already corpse colored to begin with.” Farrow’s words came to me over my shoulder. I couldn’t find a way out of the shadow’s glare. There were no eyes to speak of. Just a darkness that spread and spread until I found myself falling into it.

There. In that deep unsettling nothingness I came to a standstill. No wind. No water. No warmth. No ground on which to step. It was more than silence. It was less than silence. It was neither absence nor presence. It surrounded me. It was me. It bubbled and sloshed and became an overwhelming lack. Emptiness means space to be filled. But there was no concept even of space in that sudden nothing.

I gasped, desperate to search for anything, only to find there was no me. Nothing by which to gasp. Nothing by which to look. To feel.

I needed to find a way out. I needed. Did I need? I? What was I? To need…?