VIII. The Drowning Pool
The
sensible option would be to give up on him. You barely know him, after all. And he's only human. Or if you really want a reasonable chance of getting him back alive, you'd go and prepare and if he's already dead by the time you find him - well, the odds were never on your side.
You've never been a sensible woman. Sensible people don't become sorceresses with the will to bend the world around them. Sensible people don't consort with the princes of chaos. Sensible people do the boring,
boring things that Cheraki society wants them to.
Sensibility is a chain; is a gag; is a leash.
These are thoughts that only happen after you've taken a step back, a deep breath, and dove head first into the water. The chill holds you tight as you pull yourself down and down. Beams of sunlight cut through the water, twinkling in the depths. They pick out the shattered walls of these flooded underlayers, covered in pond weed and water plants. They play over white skeletons whose flesh is long gone, and now greenery sprouts from black eye sockets. The sunbeams are the only light as you swim down - and there's a second hole in the floor underneath, down into the darkness, picked out by a single ray of light. That's where the trail of irises goes.
Kick kick kick pull kick kick. Your body doesn't want to obey you. It's telling you you're hurt. It's telling you it needs to breath. It's telling you that the water on top of you is too heavy it's getting heavier and you need to give up. Your ears hurt; your nose hurts; your eyes hurt.
The pressure is growing; the water feels icy cold. Your leg hurts. But there's still a trail of irises here, and so you grit your teeth. No one beats you. No one. You are fuelled by rage. Rage and, yes, sexual frustration.
The room further down is much bigger and much taller. The blue-green light from above dimly illuminates water-logged wooden benches and a lavishly decorated tiled floor that's littered with debris. There were once murals on the walls, but the water has claimed them leaving only traces of gold leaf that gleams when it catches a reflection. White statues lie toppled, flakes of paint on their disfigured faces.
The irises swirl around a cracked marble table, that lies half covered by fallen floors. There are silver candlesticks protruding from the debris around it, but the candles are long gone.
No time to admire the view. Lungs. Hurt. Air. Need air. Water heavy. Ears hurt. Eyes hurt. Nose hurts. Chest hurts.
Your vision is turning grey. The only colour down here is the bright purple irises. They're growing out of… table. Looks like a shrine. Your body is screaming at you. Need air. Need
air.
With almost all you have left, you kick out, reaching for what you think is a door handle. The flowers wrap around you, embracing you, and the last thing you see is a cloud of irises.
Then air. Sweet, sweet air. You hit the ground with a splash and a hard impact, and your reflexive gasp inhales water. The next minute or so is spent gasping, spluttering, wheezing, and generally trying to breathe without coughing. Your ears hurt and your nose is hot and coppery. When you wipe it, your forearm comes away red.
Sinking back onto your thighs, you scoop your hair out of your face and pinch your nose to stop the bleeding.
"So. Found… found your little hidey hole," you mutter, more to yourself than anyone around you. Because there is no one around you. If there were, they'd definitely have heard the noise you were making.
Water drips from on high. Drip. Drip. Drip. It pours from grand marble balconies that surround this great hall with a painted, flaking sky. It falls into puddles that sprawl across the stone. One of the grand staircases is a river, the steps carved away into a canyon that directs the flow. You think this area around the pool that is the entrance was once an interior garden; now it is a fetid marsh where common weeds grow fat upon the drizzlings of divine nectar.
Perhaps once this place was bustling with figures, passing through the many doors. Lesser spirits carrying messages for their superiors, tiny hand-sized doors for petit house-gods and other minor spirits. Was the flooded room you entered through once a temple raised to unknown gods? Would those who worshipped here longed to have seen the spirits of this fortress-gate grant them a vision?
Did they pray, desperately, when these gates fell and were sacked?
But now these halls are dead. The only sound here is your breath, the constant background sound of the running water, and deep and resonant, the creak of stone. Ruin has come to the houses of the gods. Their temple outside is flooded and forgotten; their inner sanctum is water-stained and rotten. The braziers are unlit, their brass stands encrusted with soot. The lush carpets are long gone, and only traces exist in the corners of staircases where the damp has spared them.
Behind you is the door you came in through, a once-grand double set that sits up to your middle in stagnant water. Mould crawls across its surface. Shakily, you rise to your feet and rest your hand on the verdigris-coated copper handle. Just a slight pressure is enough to have the flow of water leaking between the two doors increase, and you throw your shoulder against it to close the door.
That's your way out.
So. Here you are. In a ruined and decayed palace for the gods, buck naked. This has
definitely never happened before, you think with clarity and moral determination. You squeeze out the water from your hair and tie it back in a rough knot, to keep out of your face. It's cool down here, and with cupped hands you strip what water you can off your body. You're going to have to keep moving. The last thing you want to do is cramp up.
Carefully, you pick your way across this echoing room, taking care where you step. You veer left, to the drier side of the room, and slink into the behind that support the balconies that overlook this space. You can't follow the spirit's trail now. When you focus your mind, there's a lush carpet of purple irises covering the whole floor, waving in an unseen breeze. This place is saturated with divinity, despite appearances.
You run your fingers along the wall as you creep through this ruin. Damp, mouldering flecks of once-brilliant red and gold leaf come off at your touch, revealing stained stone underneath. Red for Mars; red for blood and victory and triumph. And gold for the Sun; all-father, life-bringer, foe of the ice-demons of the north. It makes sense. This was once a fortification; you are not surprised they would venerate such great beings.
Now, where would the spirit have taken Amigere? Not through the tiny doors, you're fairly sure. Not unless you're only going to get him back as puree. But there are so many doors here, and what if they're locked? They can't have been
that far ahead of you.
You freeze up at a noise ahead of you. You shrink back behind a marble pillar which is
unpleasantly cold against your bare back. And then you recognise the yawn.
Really.
"You," you say, stepping out with your arms crossed.
"Well, that was moderately unpleasant," Sei says, sitting up on a broken pillar where it's dry. "I nearly got wet."
"You. Nearly got wet," you say through gritted teeth.
He tilts his head and yawns, showing his little pink tongue. "Yes. That would have been awful."
You tell Sei what you think of him, using language quite unbefitting of a lady.
"Temper, temper," he says, fox-like tails flicking.
"I don't suppose you did something useful? Like bringing my swords? Or my clothes?" you try.
"Oh, did you forget them?" He chuckles, cleaning his horns with a paw. "Oopsie. I suppose you're just going to have to seduce the god in charge of this stinking ruin."
You were considering that, but only if you have to. You have some self-respect, and someone who would live in a pit like this is clearly lacking it.
"Well, have you found out where the spirit has its lair?" you asked.
"Yes. In here."
Sei needs to die in a fire. "So you don't know where they are with any more precision?"
He yawns in your face. "Well, you could poke around in that door over there," he says, nodding over at one of the little doors on the floor that's no larger than your hand. "There's a delicious mousey behind it."
You consider it. Now that you look closer, that specific door is both above water and there are little muddy handprints on the peeling red paintwork. "I could open it for you. Wouldn't you like to chase down the… the mouse?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Sei says with a sniff. "There's puddles around there, my lady. I'm not getting wet."
"Sometimes I wonder why I made you a deer-cat-fox," you mutter, pacing up to the little door. "I could have made you something that was actually obedient." He doesn't respond, which… well, you're not sure if it's for the best or not.
Getting down on your hands and knees, you listen at it the door. Yes, you can hear movement behind there. And there's light coming out from under the door.
Carefully, you pick up a small piece of fallen masonry that's lying nearby. You weigh it consideringly in your hand, considering its heft, and nod approvingly. That'll do. That'll do nicely.
Then you smash the door in. Like - ha ha - a snake, your hand darts in, and you grab the little warm body your skin touches.
"Got you!" you gloat, pulling the tiny spirit out. They're only the size of your hand.
The spirit looks like she was once a house-goddess, but she looks…
feral. Her robes are torn to the knee and so faded from many washes that you can't tell what colour they used to be. Her hair is a
mess with tangled plaster dust trapped in it, and streaked with white. There's a sharpened nail slung over her back, but she can't draw it; not when you have a hold on her like this.
She's also swearing sulfurously at you in Firetongue.
House-gods are little creatures, kin to forge-gods and other domestic spirits. They live in hearths, under tables, and in the tight they run along the rafters and make sure everything in the house is in order. Every one you've seen before is scrupulously neat, even fussy. How far must one have fallen in this unoccupied ruin? In Cherak there are stories of what happens when you don't perform the right ceremonies when a house is abandoned; you get mad spirits that try to trap anyone who sleeps in such a ruin and keep them prisoner as the 'residents'.
Is that why they wanted Amigere?
"Little one," you say, as she squirms in your hand, "I have questions for you. If you…"
The damn thing spits in your face. It's like a raindrop, but you still don't appreciate such things.
"Listen to me,
spirit," you tell the tiny creature in Old Realm, her neck between your fingers. So small. So fragile. Your eyes shine with an inner light; your pupils stretch out to draconic slits. "I am a princess of the Earth. I am chosen by Sextes Jylis. I can trace my lineage back to Odat Aoi, scalelord of the Twenty First Legion of the Shogunate - and though her to Gens Odat. Ten thousand dragons stand behind me. I am Ferem Odat Rena! And a spirit in this wretched warren has taken something from me!
"I want him back."
"Let me go!" the goddess protests in rusty Old Realm that's worse than yours. "I didn't take nothing!"
"Ah ha! So you did take something!" you declare. She just looks confused. Oh, wait, maybe she's so rusty with Old Realm that she's forgotten about how to construct a negative. "You have to know who took my Amigere! Tell me, or I'll feed you to my pet!"
There's a chuckle from behind you. Oh, Sei likes that.
"You're crushing me, you big huge bitch!"
"I don't care," you say. It's not even like she's wrong. Compared to her, you are both big and huge. And as for the third thing, well, you're a
little tense right now. It's forgivable. "A tall thin spirit came up through the pool and snatched my, "
friend boyfriend toyboy lover, "husband," you lie shamelessly. "So I'm getting him back. Do you want to see a dragon's wrath, little godling?"
The spirit swallows. "No… no, your excellency," she croaks.
Your nostrils flare. "So. Who here controls water? Who stole my bird-man?"
"I… it was prob'bly Yanbu," the little goddess whispers. "She… she was the temple goddess. But the temple flooded. All flooded once they were dead. She still sweeps the temple. Brush brush brush. The piercing sun came. Walked these halls. Couldn't be stopped. Burned. Melted. They died. Left all alone."
So. A mad temple-goddess. You think back about what you can remember about them. She's probably a temple guardian, something that protects the sanctity of a holy place. That or she's some minor goddess who was enshrined in the temple. Either way, her temple is a ruin and no matter what the little house spirit babbles about, no one is sweeping. Not in here and definitely not in the flooded temple outside.
"Why would she take my bird-man?" you ask.
"Why ask why she does anything? Why does the rain fall from the ceiling? She's in charge. You don't question her," she says. "She'll kill you. Even if you are dragon-kin. She'll kill you and gnaw on your bones and I'll take your knuckles and polish them. I have to keep her house clean. She's the only one who lives around her. All the others are gone."
"You're her loyal servant?" you ask. That might be a problem.
"Yes, yes, always loyal, didn't leave!" She coughs, a wet, horrid sound. "Didn't leave, like the others did. Nasty, nasty wretches. Wretches! Left me all alone. To do their work too. No one living here but milady and me."
Hmm.
"Now," you say, "this Yanbu. Where would she be?"
"She lives all the way back there, in the room that used to be the daimyo's," the house-goddess mumbles. "I have to walk all the way back there. It's where she keeps her things. Such a long walk."
"And will she kill him?" you ask. The goddess doesn't say anything, lips squeezed shut. So you squeeze her more tightly. "Tell me!"
She yelps. "I… not yet. She… temple. Wants priests for the temple."
"It's flooded," you say grimly. Well. Maybe that's where the skeletons came from.
Right. Now you know where she is. Now, what to do with this goddess?
Little paws press against your back, claws not quite out. "You know, my lady," Sei says, amusement in his voice. "I just found something."
"What?" you snap.
"Huh?" asks the spirit, staring up at you with mad eyes.
You hear the sound of Sei coughing up a hairball, which is something you certainly wanted to hear ever at all. But there's the sound of metal, and a slithering chain. You half-turn, and while Sei has made himself scarce, there's…
Oh. Your eyes widen, and with your free hand you reach out. You're shaking. You're actually shaking.
Because lying there on the ground behind you, covered in cat drool and worse things, is an elaborate necklace. All five colours of jade are there, linked by white jade chains, in a many-pieced dragon arrangement - but that's not what matters. What matters are the delicate wyldstones that make up its eyes, fangs and claws.
You took this thirty years ago from a nameless tomb in the Odat lands. What is it doing here? You thought it...
Sei! That little shit! He ate your necklace! And has been waiting all this time to cough it up! You couldn't find it when you'd tried to flee!
You giggle. You can't help but giggle, as you dip it into one of the ponds to clean off the nastiness. Clumsily, you fumble it back on with one hand, feeling that familiar weight sit around your neck. It's something you didn't realise you missed until you had it back.
Strange, really. Amazing how a necklace makes you feel much less naked.
"Godling," you say, through your clenched teeth. "I think I got what I needed. But I'm not happy."
"I didn't lie!" she squeals shrilly. "I didn't!"
You kiss your fingertips, and press them to the dragon. The wyldstones feel greasy under your touch. All the hair on the back of your neck rises on end as you feed that
hunger deep within you, letting it out, near the surface. The skin on your arms tickles, squirming, itching as your tattoos start to glow.
Like old friends, the viper and the peacock rear up out of your skin, half-real projections made of your burning soul. The air smells of pine and flowers.
"What are you doing?" squeals the goddess.
"Your soul. Give it to me," you breathe, pressing your fingertips to her brow. The peacock and the viper descent, mouths open, and the goddess screams. The snake bites down onto her chest, spectral fangs piercing clean through. You drop her, and she collapses like a child's doll. Arm over arm, she tries to crawl away.
And then the peacock descends, with its eye-covered feathers spread wide, and swallows her whole.
You let out a slow, relieved sigh as the bird and the snake collapse back into your skin, coiling around your neck and the wyld-tainted necklace before returning to their normal places.
Still got it, darling.
And now you have her. You touch your fingers to the necklace, feeling the pulse of the trapped godling. A tattoo of a purple iris paints itself on your neck for just a moment, before it vanishes again.
Yes, now you have her.
Now that Rena has her hands on an item of power once again, she has regained control over perhaps the most dangerous and forbidden art she has studied; the art of the soul thief. This spell is one she invented from her dark research, taking years of study and foul pacts with faerie lords to create. And when it was found that she studied - and indulged - in such prohibited magic, that set up her fall.
The Peacock and the Viper
Means: An item of power wrought from jade and tainted by the wyld
Upon casting this spell, Rena's tattoos come to life, the viper and the peacock crawling over the surface of her skin as phantasms. In this state, the next being she touches is afflicted by her soul-eating curse. Strong foes will merely suffer vicious spiritual attacks from the viper and the peacock, but weak-willed or heavily injured enemies will have their souls torn out - killing them - and the souls will be conveyed by the phantasms to the item of power, where they are trapped
Rena can release the souls to pass onto reincarnation at a later date. On the other hand, there are so many uses for stolen souls. They can be bartered, fed to wyld-things, and there are magical uses too.
Such as the spell below, which she can now use again now she has her soul-vessel once again.
What Foul Soul-Stealer's Art Does She Know?
[ ] Soul-Thief's New Face - Rena takes a trapped soul, and stretches its form over herself or another, taking on its appearance fully. This includes voice and accent, and the trapped soul whispers subliminal hints to her that helps her adjust her mannerisms and patterns of speech - though a keen observer might notice particularly out-of-character actions. The soul returns to its prison at the end of this spell, which Rena can end at her whim. Prolonged use of a single soul risks it escaping her grasp and passing on or seeking revenge when she ends the spell.
[ ] Soul-Bound Servitor - Taking a trapped soul, Rena draws its strength to animate a servitor made from the elements. The servitor wears the face of the stolen soul, but has none of its memories and serves her loyally until it is destroyed. More powerful souls produce more potent servitors. The soul is expended in the creation of the servitor, but it endures until it is destroyed.
[ ] The Wandering Soul - Plucking out one of her trapped souls, Rena forges it into an intangible spirit with nightmarish powers. Rena can spy through the eyes of such wandering souls, and possess it to slip into other's dreams. The wandering soul serves for a year and a day, before dispersing.
[ ] The Soul is the Blade - Through dark arts, Rena scourges a trapped soul into an animate weapon. Such weapons have a strange and obviously uncanny aspect. She can wield this weapon herself, or if she invests more power the weapon can float by her and obey simple instructions. Such a soul-blade lasts for a year and a day before dispersing.
