Episode LVIII - City of...

            Ellis was surprised and greatly pleased to see Broken-Hope escorting Siren and the Former Baron into his chamber, even more so to have his bonds released so that he might greet them properly, shaking Von Spektr’s spindly hand and enveloping Siren in a slightly awkward hug.

            “I was so worried about you,” he said, directing his gaze at them both, “I didn’t know what was happening.  We found the Dusk Raider in an inlet to the north and raced back to find you, but it seems the Lich had already attacked the camp by then.”

            “Well, at least we’ve managed to meet up again,” said the Former Baron, “but now it looks like we have quite the challenge on our hands.”

            “Defeating this Lich?” Ellis asked.

            The Former Baron gave a brief nod before continuing, “It’s not as easy as it sounds, my boy.  Liches are powerful creatures, born of greed and hatred and empowered by more hypostatick energy than any being should have access to.”

            “What exactly is a Lich, anyway?”

            “Of course you wouldn’t know,” Siren replied, as if it had only just occurred to her, a fact Ellis found a little irritating, “well, the first Liches were created by early Hyposatick Philosophers trying to achieve immortality.  They bound their hypostatick energies to their bodies in a way that meant they would not lose them to the aether when they died.”

            “An elegant solution to an ancient problem,” the Former Baron continued, “but it had two major flaws.  Firstly, to bind that much hypostatick energy in place for all eternity required huge amounts of energy from another source, hence the slaughter of hundreds of innocents just for one man to satiate his lust for life.  The second problem was that, whilst eternal life proved perfectly achievable once the former conditions were met, the Philosophers’ bodies did not stay youthful and vigorous as they had hoped.  They soon found that they aged and decayed at the normal rate - the first Liches became naught but sentient dust, in fact!  In later years those who wanted to join the ranks of the Liches tried to preserve their flesh as well, but in the end they were only able to save their bones.”

"So that's why we have a skeletal pirate captain on the loose, but what about its voice?  How does it make people do what it wants?"

"Well, the older you get the more tricks you can pick up, I suppose.  The Liches have been around for a very long time.  To begin with they were individual terrors, Philosophers and kings who lusted for life and power so much that even the loss of their flesh was no impediment to their greed.  Eventually they began to group together, however.  I suppose they mellowed with the millennia.  They worked together to seek out new powers and to absorb more and more energy as they went until, as you no doubt saw, they were literally sparking with it."

"And then," Siren continued, "they tried to take over Shadow."

"Yes," the Former Baron was nodding, "it was during the reign of the Dhampyr dynasty and it nearly tore the city apart.  The Liches were not defeated, not in the true sense, but the Dhampyr were able to use their mastery of the many schools of  Hypostatick Philosophy to restrain them in a way.  They are almost trapped in their fortress of Coldsolace Keep and it takes a great deal of energy and discomfort, perhaps even pain, for even one of them to leave and enter the rest of the world."

Ellis thought this all through for a moment, before replying, "So for Harker to have gained the help of one now means..."

"That he has very powerful allies.  Very powerful indeed."

"And if the Dhampyr weren't able to defeat them fully, how do we stop it?"

"That, my dear boy, will require a great deal of thought, but I think that between us, and with the help of the Fallen, we might just be able to do it."

Broken-Hope stood by the entrance to the chamber and beside him, taller, dark-haired, dark-robed and scowling, stood another figure who Ellis guessed must be Once-Scorned, the Fallen who had taken him captive somewhere above.  Out of curiosity Ellis turned his head to catch this other Fallen out of the corner of his eye.  What he ‘saw’ confirmed his experiences from before: a chaotic set of impressions, lines and angles, as if a scribbled shape had come to life on the other side of the room.  The emotions which seemed to represent Once-Scorned were, like his appearance, darker than Broken-Hope’s.  Ellis made a note to be wary of him.

Once it was clear that the three former captives had finished celebrating their reunion they took a step forward and, gesturing to the corridor behind himself, Broken-Hope said, "Well now, it would seem well past time for you to meet the others."

The Former Baron nodded sharply, as if this was just the kind of courtesy he had been waiting for and then he led the way past the Fallen and into the darkness beyond.

It seemed that only the sacrificial chambers in this part of the catacombs were so well-lit with candles.  Sconces dotted the corridor at intervals, but not often enough to fill their gloomy length, so Ellis found himself stumbling through the darkness between rare pools of warm light.  Broken-Hope had regained the lead and it was his bright robes which served as the beacon for Ellis' navigation during much of the journey.  And what a journey it was!  Ellis could never have imagined that such a great labyrinth could have existed in the sand beneath the Shoals and he wondered at the power it must have taken to excavate the tunnels and line them with stone.  He wasn’t sure it should even be possible at all.

Eventually - just as Ellis thought his feet might give way, in fact - the corridors opened out into a large cavern-like chamber and, as he adjusted to the sudden increase in light, Ellis realised that he was staring at something quite spectacular indeed.  The chamber itself was enormous, stretching away into the distance further than Ellis could clearly see, its walls were lined with the same polished black granite that had kept the sand at bay everywhere else in these catacombs, but more than that, here there were gargoyles, monuments, friezes, statues and caryatids adorning every alcove and concealing every contour, so that it seemed that they were being watched by a thousand stony eyes.  Except the frozen gazes were not aimed at them, but at the feature which lay at the heart of the chamber, the purpose for which it had been excavated: the city.

The city was, perhaps, not a city on the scale of anything Ellis would have called a city on Earth, and it was certainly nothing compared with the vastness of shadow, but it had a scale befitting antiquity: hundreds of tiered houses across scores of streets and overlooked by a few dozen step pyramids which Ellis thought were almost Mayan in style.  The city was not, however.  There were too many curves, too many unusual angles, too many details not possible to create without power and knowledge well beyond what the ancient civilisations of Central America would have known, indeed, well beyond the understanding of 21^st Century humans as well.  And there were plants too, whole parks of them; gardens of flowers so brilliant it hurt to look at them; stands of trees like miniature forests, glowing from within with fungi and flitting, flying, flickering little creatures like fireflies: all beneath a cold granite ceiling, through which no sunlight ever penetrated.  Ellis was astounded.

“How did you…?” he began, but couldn’t finish the question.  “When did they…?” he tried again.  “Where does the light come from?” he asked on the third attempt.

“When so many of us are gathered together, we make our own light,” Broken-Hope replied, “or at least,” his tone turned sad and pensive, “we claim it as our own.”

“This is truly remarkable!” the Former Baron declared, his eyes wide and bulging as they tried to take in every detail.  “Why, I never would have thought I would see the day.  It’s marvellous!  Spectacular!  Truly splendid!” He spun on his heels to face their Fallen guides and asked, “Does it have a name?”

“It has had many,” Once-Scorned replied, “and like ourselves it shall have many more.  It will not be constrained by words for long and neither shall we.”

“And yet, Brother,” Broken-Hope added, “I feel that our guests would like to know what they might call it now.”

“That would be most helpful,” the Former Baron agreed.

Once-Scorned sighed bitterly before replying, “Very well, you may call it Enoch.”

Broken-Hope nodded, “Yes, a fitting name, but also a stern reminder.”

Once-Scorned eyed him ruefully, said, “Some do not wish to remember, brother,” and then turned away.

Ellis felt a little awkward during this exchange.  There was clearly something passing between the two Fallen which he did not understand and he wasn’t sure he ought to be witness to it.  If Siren and the Former Baron had similar misgivings, however, they showed no sign of them.  Instead, Von Spektr was admiring the city once more and Siren stared at it with a longing which Ellis would normally have expected her to have for the sea.

“Can we descend?” Ellis asked finally, when he had had as much of the vista as he could bear without being able to be part of it.

Broken-Hope nodded, then stepped forward to lead the way, whilst Once-Scorned remained sullenly at their rear, like the gaoler he had been only hours before.  They made their way down a series of perfect, unworn steps towards the main avenue of the city and, as they did so, Ellis was granted visions of Enoch from many different perspectives, each one telling him something new.  One impression in particular, however, began to blight the beauty of the place.

“It seems so empty,” he said at last, when the weight of Enoch’s lonely boulevards could be born no longer.  “Where are all the others of your kind.”

“They are here,” Broken-Hope replied, “but they are few.  They will be waiting in the Temple.”

The steps ended and the avenue began, stretching out before them, vast, stony, empty.  Their footsteps echoed across the hard granite slabs as they obscured fragments of unreadable text in ancient glyphs.  Von Spektr stopped a few times to examine them, muttering to himself and exclaiming syllables of excitement along the lines of “Oh my!” and “I say!” and “My goodness!”, but he did not divulge any of his findings, if findings they actually were.

At the end of the avenue, visible from some distance away, and growing more grand with each approaching stride, stood a step pyramid both taller and broader than all the others, its stone that bit more massive, its adornments more ornate.  When they were nearly upon it Once-Scorned called for them to halt and though Broken-Hope seemed eager to advance, he let the party come to a natural stop as they gazed up at the mighty edifice.

“This is the Council of the Chosen,” Once-Scorned said, his voice suddenly booming like thunder.  “A shrine to the great no-god, to the king within, to the Fallen and all their separate desires.”  He approached the other Fallen, his hair caught on breezes Ellis could not feel and spoke softly as he asked, “Can we really invite these humans into our council, into our most sacred, most profane sanctum?”

“If we want to continue as we have done, dear brother, we must.”  And with that Broken-Hope advanced, the doors were flung wide before him and the Former Baron, Siren and Ellis were invited into a place no mere mortal had been allowed before: the Temple of the Fallen.

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