To the left of the path, others explored, and several stood in a circle, wringing their hands. Before them was a pit, rock-lined and not very deep. One of the women had fallen in, and all about her were the brown, horrid segmented worms that had hard shells and stood erect.
“Get up,” John demanded.
The woman did not move but lay on the floor of the pit.
“They stung her when she fell… many times. She screamed as they did it. How shall we get her out?”
Merle picked up a stone and threw it at one of the creatures, smacking it hard. It shrieked with pain, but the things, besides becoming more agitated, did not seem affected. The woman below swelled with poison; her arms and legs were bloated, and her face bulged.
“Her legs. My God….” John gasped, pulling Jenny away so she did not see.
The bloated legs burst with poisonous fluids and fused, the skin knitting quickly as it covered the space between her legs. The woman’s arms jerked close to her body as they, too, burst open and began to fuse.
Grimes ordered everyone away from the pit. He said it was too late to help the woman and they should go back to the boat quickly.
Lilia, who had seen something similar, shook her head sadly and looked at me, wondering if now I could imagine the horror; she had been unable to share the misery it caused. I hugged her quickly, letting her know I was sorry she had seen it twice now.
The passengers and crew walked along the stone path, back to the shoreline. Because I was now so aware of this world and beginning to understand it, I peered into the pit before I left, and instead of five appalling worms, I saw six, one with human-like eyes glaring back at me.
Time stood still for me.
I saw my friends and the others come to a stop in mid-stride. Nothing moved. I was not altogether shocked when a figure came out from the trees and approached me. He wore trousers, boots, and some sort of cowl that covered his face, head, and upper body in draped black wool.
Days ago, I would have fled, but now I faced him.
“Seeker.”
“I am? Or you are?” I asked.
“You are the seeker. You may call this one Droom.”
“Are you here to rip me apart or devour my flesh?”
“No. Droom is here to answer,” he said.
“What are you?”
“A means to an end, and perhaps a way…. “
I had a million questions for him, “Where are we?”
“Ry-leth is as close as your vocal cords could pronounce. You are here in a city that sank eons ago. This is but a memory, for it lies at the bottom of the sea and is lost. You saw the stars in the temple? They were aligned wrong, and the city was lost, and the great lord fell asleep beneath the waters.”
I knew that. “How did I know that?”
“If one is without eyes and blind, he cannot see. You have eyes.”
This would take forever to puzzle out. He spoke English and yet, I felt it was not quite my language he used. “Is this… real?”
“Is anything real? It is a memory. A nightmare. But while He sleeps, he dreams, and this is but one of a billion dreams. Soon, it will pass, and he will dream of something else, somewhere else.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You are incapable of understanding because of your nature, but you asked me, and I answered, Seeker.”
“Only I can… speak to you or ask questions? Why?”
“You are the Seeker. Only a Seeker may ask and be answered.”
I tried a new tactic, “Who sent you? Who ordered you to answer me?”
“I am Droom. I answer. You are the Seeker, and you ask. It is as it is.”
I knew that although he claimed I could see and understand and was allowed to ask questions, there were just some aspects I could not understand. I did not think Droom had the words to explain any better than he did. It was up to me to ask the correct questions.
“That shark and the other monsters… they attacked and killed people. The woman… she… changed. That happened? It was real?”
“Yes, they were consumed. In a blink of an eye. Their times were most small. They are… no more.”
“But they were… slaughtered.”
Droom said, “And nothing of value was lost.”
“Can you… bring them back?” I felt my temper rise.
“Can you bring them back?” he said back to me.
“Are you a monster, too?”
“In your mind and words, yes, I am a monster, a jester, and a demon. And you are my reflection.”
I felt a chill. “Why do you wear the cowl? Why is your face covered?”
“Your mind could not fathom my physical being. I am so beautiful and hideous, so light and dark, that you would go mad seeing my repugnant beauty.”
Those words alone made my head ache. How he was both, I did not understand, but I believed him, that it was better not to see his face.
“Follow me. You will come to no harm. I am here to answer you.” He turned and went the other way, down the path and towards the tall spirals. When he moved, I caught a whiff of cinnamon-burnt hair and sulfur and too-sweet- roses-dead flesh.
“Why are you showing me?”
“You are the Seeker. We waited for you since time infinite. You are a component of the order, and while your existence is meaningless, certain… conventions… are followed. I must show you a few oddities, and then we shall detach ourselves.”
“Who made the order?”
“Chaos.”
That was certainly a dead end line of questioning. “What will I do with the knowledge?”
“I cannot answer that. Unlike every other person tonight, who died on the epitome of human arrogance and pomposity, only you will maintain your memories.”
“Why?” I asked.
He shrugged, “It is part of the order. I cannot say.”
“I saw the stone shark and what was inside.”
Droom nodded.
“How can that be possible?” I asked.
“This is a place of corpses. There are no words to explain. It is because it is. Everything is… possible, and nothing is possible.”
I glared sideways at Droom. He made little sense. He pointed to a stone valley below, and there were creatures that slid about on a mucus-slime. Their bodies were fat and loathsome, and they had multiple eyes and snaking tentacles.
“Yog,” Droom said. “Over there is the… forest would be your word. We cannot go there, as even I could not keep you safe, Seeker. Trees might melt the fiber of our being, and I mean that quite literally. Plants consume men whole, and there are flying things of all sorts that would sting you, setting your soul ablaze. On the ground are burrowing things, ones who would mate with humans and reproduce beautiful, horrific things, and crawling, creeping horrors.”
“I should not enjoy meeting any of them,” I said, “will this always be here?”
“All are of the water. The Deep Ones will go back into the water when this place sinks. Again, it is a dream that He is having.”
“Who is he?”
“You could not understand the word or hear it if I said it. You have no word for Him. Your vocal cords could not form the sounds to say His name. You would have to mutilate your own vocal cords to pronounce even the first syllable.”
“And he is the god you worship? Is he the king?”
Droom paused, “Aren’t we all?
I became angry. Why did Droom speak in riddles? How was this of use to me? “I do not know why I am seeing this, Droom. I have no reason to. Go back to your watery world. Sink and be done.”
I was disgusted and tired. Nothing helped me in any way but were just more mysteries. The entire place felt wrong and evil, but I was no longer afraid. “If I can, I shall kill every one of these monsters possible. I am not a part of this, for I am your enemy.”