Deus Necros

Chapter 546: Into the Dark

The ship tore through the dunes of the desert as if they were sea waves, not halting or stopping. The keel hummed with a deep, even vibration that traveled through plank and rib and into the bones of everyone aboard. Runes glowed along the inner rails and shed a faint, patient light that looked pale against the harshness of the sky. Sand parted in long curling wakes on either side, spilled back, and closed as though the desert were a living thing that disliked being cut and healed the wound at once. It was not the surge of water but a dry glide that sang with grit. Propelled by sheer ingenious magic and the vast imagination of mankind.

Time flew by as the sun began to set, and the heat of the morning turned to a biting cold. The light drained first from the dunes’ crests, then sank down their slopes, and the long shadows of the pillars of wind-carved sand stretched until the whole landscape wore bruises. Breath became a ghost in the air. The sailors all swapped from their thin cloth to heavier and thicker material, shrugging into salt-stained coats, pulling scarves higher, tugging gloves tight by the teeth. Buckles clicked. Wool rasped. Oaths softened into steam. While Ludwig remained wearing the same set of regalia. The black and silver drank the twilight and gave nothing back. Heat and cold were of little importance to a man who met death. The chill numbed exposed cheeks and tried to work its way along the wrists; it found no purchase. And right now, he simply shrugged it off.

The captain handed Ludwig a bottle of rum, “Here, should help keep the cold off, since you don’t want to wear anything thicker. Mr noble,” she smiled. Her breath carried the faint sweetness of the cask and the sharper edge of desert nights, and her palm was rough from rope and wheel.

Ludwig grabbed the bottle from her hand, “I’m no noble,” and chugged several mouthfuls as he handed it back, letting the heat uncoil through chest and stomach, steady and honest. “But that’s some good rum.”

“Thanks, I made it myself, pretty hard to get a vineyard in the desert but I could manage,” she said. The joke curled at the corner of her mouth. He could smell the spice she had added to the barrel, something like clove and something like smoke. A captain’s pride sat there in the taste.

“So,” Ludwig asked, “Tell me more about that… imposter.” He kept his eyes on the horizon while he spoke. The dunes rose and fell in a rhythm that tried to lull the mind, so he let his thoughts anchor to the words instead.

“Ah, yes,” she said as she took a drink, warming her hands on the glass, “We heard news of you… I mean, the man claiming to be you, traveling across the desert. There was not much more to it at first than hearsay about the achievements back at Tulmud, and the mess at the Solania peaks. Soon then, whenever the name of the person Ludwig Heart visited a village or an oasis, it soon perished, at first it was a coincidence, then the second time it happened we had suspicion, but when it happened the third and fourth time, it was confirmation. Every place he went to, something terrible would happen to it. Either their waters would dry, their people would perish and die, or some sort of disaster would befall them.” She did not dramatize it. The words came out flat and hard, as if sand had stripped polish from them. A few sailors nearby listened without tilting their heads, the way men do when trying not to hope.

“Have you met this imposter?”

“The desert is vast, so no, and if I did I don’t think I’ll let him live.” She glanced at the men at the lines and at the casks lashed by the mast, as if measuring how much mercy a dry season could carry. Not much, by her look.

“Fair point,” Ludwig said as he looked in the distance. The moon was the only thing visible all around them, and a few stars that barely had shined beyond the clouds. The cold sharpened the sky until it felt thin enough to tear. The ship’s wake left two pale ribbons on the dark desert, then even those vanished when the sand settled. He let the quiet hold a breath before he spoke again. “I can’t have someone dirtying my good name,” Ludwig said, “I worked hard to get to where I am,” he said. He spoke without pride or plea. It was a ledger fact.

“That I can agree with,” Misty’s words came from behind them, she was holding something in her hand that looked like a golden compass. The casing caught moonlight like a small tame star, and the lid had the fine scratches of something kept close and used often. Although it had a needle that wasn’t pointing north. The needle tugged, corrected, tugged again, with a faint, hungry certainty.

“What is that?” Ludwig asked. He reached no further than his eyes. The amulet sat cool at his throat and hummed along with the ship’s pulse.

“Tracking compass,” Misty said. She kept it cupped in both hands and watched the needle as if it were the breath of a sleeping friend.

“Aren’t those forbidden by your empire?” The captain asked. Her tone held curiosity and a caution that came naturally to people who ferried contraband when contraband was water and hope.

Ludwig frowned, “Why would a compass be forbidden by the empire?” He could think of three reasons before the question left his mouth, and still he asked to hear which one lived on this deck.

“This isn’t a normal compass,” Misty said, “Also I’m surprised you wouldn’t know this, aren’t you a student of the Black Tower?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I know everything,” Ludwig shrugged. He thought of the cold halls and colder teachers, assignments that smelled of old ink, and a dozen weapons for thought that had nothing to do with this neat little thing in her hands.

“Basically… this uses dark magic, it takes a sliver of a person’s soul and attaches it to the tip of the needle. Allowing you to track the owner of the soul wherever he is.” She lowered her voice without whispering. The men at the rail pretended to mind the wind. The needle pulled again and settled with an almost satisfied stop. A thin line of worry drew across her forehead and vanished.

“I see, I find it harmless though, for it to be banned and forbidden.” He watched the needle rather than her face. Harmless was a word that fooled people more surely than dangerous.

“Well, in case you didn’t realize, I have a sliver of Titania’s soul here,” Misty said in a hushed tone, for only his ears. The reverence in the way she held the compass said as much as the name. The desert seemed to listen.

“And that’s supposed to make it dangerous I suppose?” He did not move closer, but he leaned with his attention.

The captain although didn’t know who the binding on the compass belonged to, was the one to answer. “Even a sliver of a soul can be used to corrupt and curse or even cause malice onto the owner of that soul, this is basically a lifeline given to another, whoever gave you that compass must have great trust in you,” the captain said. Her eyes went from the compass to Misty’s face, weighing the fit between gift and bearer, and apparently finding it true.

“Yes, and seems like we’re approaching them fast.” Misty said. The needle twitched again, then held. A soft light breathed across the dial, as if in answer.

The captain frowned, “This is interesting then, since we just entered the Maho desert…” She tasted the word as if it might taste wrong tonight.

“How do you know? All I’ve seen so far is sand?” Ludwig asked. The dunes had softened at the edges since nightfall. Everything looked like everything.

“Did you not notice how the ship is moving far faster than before?” she asked. She had already widened her stance a fraction and laid two fingers on the rail, feeling the new hum through wood.

Ludwig looked around, and it was true, the ship felt like it accelerated a couple folds than earlier. The vibration underfoot had sharpened. The wake curled higher. Even the ropes had found a quicker rattle.

“The Maho desert sands are thinner and looser, very dangerous to walk on. And harbor a lot of creatures that like the light sand, as it’s easier to ambush from. She looked around, “Andy,” she shouted, “To the risen monuments.”

“Aye captain!” the man on the wheel replied and turned the ship starboard. The rudder groaned; the hull leaned. The cold air slid along their cheeks like a blade laid flat.

Soon, the ship turned toward what looked like small needles rising from the sand. At first they were only snags in the night, pale as bone under the moon. The closer they drew, the more the needles thickened into spires with shoulders and fluted sides. The wind ran around them and made a low note that sounded like someone humming through closed teeth.

Ludwig took a peek at Misty’s compass and realized that the needle was pointed at those landmarks. It did not waver now. It wanted to be here.

But the closer the group got to the landmark, the larger those looking needles became, until they soon transformed into massive stone pillars. Frosted with blown grit, veined with old salt, they carried the memories of tools long rusted and hands long dust. The carvings that ran their lengths had been chewed by wind, yet faces still peered, eyes gouged deep, mouths set in lines of prayer or warning. Some figures held bowls, forever empty. Others lifted hands toward a sky that had not listened for centuries.

“Captain…” Andy said, and the captain immediately walked up to the helm. She slid the bottle to a deckhand without looking, fingers already measuring the wind and the gaps. “I got it.” She said and took the station. She settled her boots wide, palms at ten and two on the wheel, the look of a woman who had steered through tighter places.

Almost immediately, the ship slowed down, moving slowly between the pillars where carvings of men were drawn on ancient stone. Ropes whispered through blocks. The turbine’s song dulled to a murmur. Stone that was ceaselessly assaulted by the sand desert yet still remained standing, for the most part. Many of the pillars had lost half their size, and many others had fallen crumbled or leaned on others. Sand had piled against their knees and poured away from their hips. While the ship moved past all of them, slowly and attentively the whole group seemed to be on edge. Men lowered voices without being told. A crewman touched a charm under his shirt, then pretended he had only scratched an itch.

“The compass has stopped,” Misty said as the ship seemed to reach what looked like an opened entrance that led down, an entrance fortified by stone and magic, where this magic had stopped any and all sand from entering the mouth of it. The air above the opening was still in a way that did not belong to the desert. The sand at the threshold formed a clean lip, as if held back by invisible hands.

“That… shouldn’t be open…” one of the sailors said. His voice had a hoarse scrape, as if the sight had dragged old stories up his throat.

Ludwig turned, “You know this place?” He let his gaze sweep the lintel, the faint runes tucked into the shadows, the way the night around the mouth felt heavier.

“Yes, it’s the original moon bridge. This is where the Moon Princess used to come and worship… But it was too far and too rundown so the Kingdom of the Sands built a new one instead and abandoned this one…” The man’s eyes did not quite meet the opening as he spoke. He looked slightly to the side, as if the doorway were a face one should not look straight into.

Ludwig looked at the captain and back at the entrance, then at Misty. The needle lay pinned, silent, certain. The cold drew a finer edge along his cheekbones. The amulet lay calm. The Heart listened.

“You’re all thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked. He could already feel the angle of the descent in his knees, the taste of old stone in the air, the way sound would change once inside.

“Yes, and none of us like it.” The captain’s fingers tightened on the wheel once, then released. Her jaw shifted as if testing a tooth.

“Then let’s get it over with then,” Ludwig said as he jumped over the ship’s railing to the sand below. The drop was short, the landing soft and silent. Grains slid and whispered around his boots, then settled as if listening. He looked back only long enough to see Misty swing the suitcase down with easy strength and the captain raise two fingers to her brow in a brisk, reluctant salute. The cold air from the open mouth of the moon bridge touched his face like the first breath inside a tomb. He stepped toward it without hesitation.