He passed alcoves filled with the bones of unknown animals. Small slits in the outer walls grant ed vi ew of the black landscape.
His muscles tensed as he ascended the final few steps.
The upper floor of the tower was a single large room. The ceiling was drastically too high for the circumference of the chamber. The lightning worms were absent there, so only the barest details were visible in the light that spill ed in from the doorway behind him: shattered porcelain dolls, piles of shredded clothing, smoking ice strewn like shattered glass. The room was quiet, and all he heard was the tell-tale call of the stygian wind s.
The children waited for him. A boy and a girl, both dressed in rags. They weren ’ t as large as they’d been outside, where the ir appearance had been almost troglodytic, preposterous skulls on ridiculously small bodies. There in the tower they were much smaller, and while their flesh held an unnatural pallor they at least were the size of normal children, only with slightly enlarged eyes. T hey stood stone- still and stared at Cross as he stepped into the chamber.
They weren’ t alone.
A monstrous presence waited behind them, something t all and massive but entirely encased in pillars of roving darkness. He squinted to try and get a better look at the creature, but whatever it wa s it remained just out of sight.
“Hello,” the boy said. His voice was flat and emotionless. He moved robotically.
“Um…hello,” Cross said quietly. He took another step into the room, but he refused to wade too far in. The light behind him couldn’t penetrate the gloom. He heard something wet in the shadows, something sli thering. It coiled and tensed, and he smelled the musk of organic waste, vaguely sexual but putrid. “What is this place?”
“Shelter from the storm,” the girl said. H er voice was equally dead and distant. Neither of them moved an inch. Cross didn’t think they even breathed.
“Why am I here?” he asked.
“Only you can know that,” the boy said.
“We are not concerned with why you are here,” the girl said.
Cross stepped sideways, careful to walk slow and quiet.
“What are you concerned with?” he asked.
“How to leave,” they both said in tandem, their voices so effortlessly cued to the same frequency it sent shivers up his spine.
“Leave…this tower?”
“The Whisperlands,” they said, and then the boy continued to talk on his own. “I am a prisoner here, just like you. I have been here for a very long time.”
“What are you?” he asked. His fingers slid towards Soulrazor/ Avenger ’s grip. It had been some time since he’d remember the black-and-white sword’s name s. “Why are you talking to me through these…” He looked at the girl. It was difficult to see just how lifeless she was in the dark. “ Through these things… they sure as hell aren’t children. ”
“Your mind could not bear the sight of me,” she said.
“That’s a little judgmental, isn’t it?” he said with a nervous laugh.
I have no magic, he realized. He’ d wandered across the Whisperlands for what felt like decades, but in the mental mire caused by the black windscape the memory of his loss either hadn’t occurred to him, or else it simply hadn’t mattered. The blades might not have any of their arcane properties here, and I don’t have any other weapons. If the s e things want to kill me, I’m done.
“It is not a matter of judgmen t, or inclination,” the boy said.
“It is matter of what you can fathom,” the girl add ed. “And you cannot fathom me.”
“You’d be surprised,” Cross said grimly. “So what do you want from me?”
“You wish to escape,” the boy said. “That is plain.”
“I wish to help you,” the girl add ed. “But I cannot leave this place.”
“Of course,” Cross said with a nod.
“Do not doubt me,” the boy s aid. The voice was less human than before. It scratche d like steel and glass. The child ren ’s eyes we re black. Shadow veins bulged from their faces and ma de their false flesh paler. Their feet lift ed slightly off the ground.
T endrils attach ed them to the darkness at the back of the room. Flesh lines hooked into their backs, greasy appendages dripping slime in the rigid air. He couldn’t tell if the bodies were those of actual children or if they were just extensions, constructs. Flesh puppets.
“How can I not doubt you?” Cross asked quietly. He took a step back towards to the stairs. “You won’t show me what you are.”
There was n o answer. He felt the air breath e and tense.
And then it showed him.
Darkness peeled back. Tendrils of shadow ripped away like frightened snakes. The children’s eyes vanished into puddles of slime, a nd the bodies flattened like empty sacks a nd fell to the floor with sickening slumps.
The creature was made of soiled skin and shadow orifices. Its mountainous husk was the height of the room, a pulsating membrane of fish-like flesh and tinted veins. It had no visible limbs or appendages save the tentacle strands, which melted so seamlessly into its bulk they almost looked like shadows th emselves. The entire body had the semblance of a dark tree trunk, a living pillar of glistening black skin fused to the floor.
Cross’ s head throbbed as he look ed at the creature, not so much from the grotesquerie of its appearance as from the sheer force of its psychic presence.
Eidolos. Cross had heard of the dread race before, but only in rumor. They were one of the few creatures described in the Tome o f Scars he’ d never encountered firsthand. Once-allies (or slaves, or masters, depending on which story one believed) of the subterranean giants called the Cruj, the Eidolos were a bizarre earthen-organic race of rocks that had assumed flesh form and bonded with the arcane energies of the earth. The younger versions took on the form of humanoids, but the older they got, the more they evolved, and the less human they appeared. Possessed of vastly superior and alien intelligence s, the Eidolos were known for their incredible cruelty and dominant psychic powers, which, if the reports were correct, could literally crush a human’s mind if they spent too long in the creature’s proximity. Warlocks and witches were supposedly afforded some measure of resistance due to their arcane spirits. Which means I m ight be screwed.
His mind felt weighted down. H is limbs grew heavy. He wanted to sleep so he could erase the intense pain in his skull. His muscles ached and seemed to melt into the floor.
No. I’m stronger than this.
He didn’t remember drawing Avenger/Soulrazor, but it shook in his hand. Its stark power lifted him to his feet. It was a hybrid sword, a fus ion of black and white shards of once larger weapons born of opposing powers, the extractions or physical manifestations of the White Mother and The Black. Every time Cross had though t the weapon’s power spent, it reminded him that it was never wise to doubt the might of divine forces.
Unlight shone from the blade. Throbbing pulses of white and echoes of black shadow pulled away from the meteor steel. The tower shook.
The shadows warped, twisted and raced back to the far corners of the room. The darkness moved with such force Cross was nearly thrown back, but the subtle shield issued by the pulsing blade kept him safe.
You wanted me to show you my form, the Eidolos’ mountain of voices called. The words were less shaped than before, more erratic, l ike it had to learn how to form speech all over again.
The room returned to the same pit of darkness it had been when he’d entered. The child puppets remained on the floor, no longer needed. Cross could only barely make out the vaguest outline of the Eidolos’ s behemoth presence.
“Yes,” he said, not wishing to come to blows with the creature, even though his blade did seem to afford him a measure of protection. Even with the artifact held firmly in hand, his head still throbbed with pain. “Yes I did. Of course, y ou could have just told me what you were…”