It was dark when the city awoke. Dry and listless, I rise and peer through the dim window above the cot I slept in and saw the street below, the sky dull and the air thick with moisture. Pulling on my coat, ancient and covered with soot, I leave my chamber. My footsteps resound through the corridor, echoing down distant passages and dim cubby holes; hard heeled boots clicking sharply against cold marble floor. Dust and rubble surround me as I descend into the gloom of the lower levels.
The door moans as I pass through the portal and enter the street. I quietly shut it behind me, its protesting cry fading into a stillness reeking of fear. A weak icy chill permeates the air, my teeth rattle as I draw the folds of my coat around me. This place, no matter how familiar, never brought me comfort. I Make my way to the other side of the walkway and take only an instant to look up at the filthy window of the coffeehouse before I enter it.
Assaulted by the smell of blood and spoiled vanilla, I make my way to an uneven table and settle myself into a well worn chair. Strassner emerged from shadows in the back of the room. His hands drenched vermilion, his smile less than reassuring, he treaded heavily across the room to the window and slowly traced pictures with his bloodied fingers in the mud encrusted glass. "Good to see you again Walker," he chuckled under his breath.
My eyes felt glazed as I stared at Strassner's gaunt face.
I do not remember how I came to this place, nor how I came to the ruin I called my home: A building which reminded me of ages past, when this world was still young, and the city had been a forest deep and lush. It was a temple perhaps- possibly an exposition hall from a long forgotten time. Whatever it had once been, it was mine now. Statues littered it, epic depictions of brave deeds and brilliant discoveries now broken and despoiled. Fountains were clogged with rotting algae, their former glory stolen from them. Murals were faded beyond comprehension, a faint touch of color on a swiftly deteriorating plaster wall. Room after room yielded corruption; tomes which turned to dust in my hands and artifacts of great beauty which were covered with rust. Over all, darkness.
For my own chamber I chose the highest point in my home. A tower jutted from the East wing, leading up to an irregularly shaped chamber with a single window. I had dragged a cot from one of the lower rooms, a thin mattress resting on a rusted iron frame, and set it by one of the walls. From my vantage point I could see the black buildings, and the faint and distant movements of whoever inhabited the burnt out shells that surrounded my temple. I wondered who they were. I wondered if any of them loved or lived.
The coffeehouse is a tiny place, a single room where three tables sat in the shadows. The only light comes dimly through the large window near the door, and in the back of the room it is so pitch that I wondered how Strassner could find his way around. But Strassner could see. He turned and smiled at me. "It's good to see you again my friend."
I manage to tear my eyes away from his shining perfect teeth only to find my gaze draw to his gore soaked digits. Momentarily Strassner moves to the back of the room and disappears into the darkness. Rain begins to fall outside the building, the pitter patter of rain against tin begins to fill the room. Suddenly Strassner sets down a chipped cup in front of me. Itís brim is caked with a putrid yellow foam.
"Drink!" Strassner giggles. "Quench your thirst with the milk of human sorrow."
"I . . . " My voice is weak from lack of use. "I don't want it." I rise from the battered table and begin to back towards the door.
"Drink . . . this but one of many cups that stand before you." Strassner's bright eyes betrayed his excitement.
"No, I don't want it." I turn my back to Strassner and leave.
For a long time I walk the streets, passing by drab soulless beings, empty buildings and black alleyways where despair lurks, threatening to engulf one with its numb fingers. These I avoid carefully as I wander aimlessly.
Eventually I come to a vast grey square, in the middle of which was a low squat structure. It appears to be a cell, large enough to hold several men. Unable to resist my curiosity I approach it, noticing two women sitting by the stone construct. Both sat facing each other, seeming to communicate in a way that did not require words. One was short in height and dark in complexion, her face thoughtful and her eyes sharply penetrating. The other's skin was an ethereal white, her lips curled into a perpetual smile which momentarily comforted me. Their clothing matched their complexion, one swathed in black crushed velvet, the other swimming in a pearly white wool robe. They seem not to notice my presence so I spoke.
"Good day." I find the words strange in my mouth.
They both immediately shifted their attention to me, a long eternity passing before one of them answered.
"What do you wish of us, whose tread speaks of one still alive?" The darker one says in a voice that unsettles my temporary courage.
"Nothing." I began haltingly. "However, in passing by, I could not help but notice you. Forgive me, I am of a great curiosity, and would know who you are."
The pale one spoke this time: "You are new to this place then, for any would know us."
Once again I begged their pardon, though they seemed to care little for my manners. "Tell me, what is this cage that you sit by?"
They smiled at me. "Your ignorance is amusing, and you shall know soon enough." The dark girl said before she and her companion swiftly stood up and silently moved away from me.
"Wait!" It was too late.
Several huddled forms scurried across the square, shades and wraiths jumping from doorway to doorway. I noticed that, nearby, a small fire burned; uncommonly lending a bit of rare light. The orange glow warmed the wretched greyish overtones which reside in everything around me. I pass by the large structure, stepping up to the flames licking at a chair smashed into several pieces. The heat surprises me at first, but I quickly grow accustomed to it. Somewhat content I look at the fire's owner, a squat portly woman of middle age. Unlike the other inhabitants of this hell, she has a certain amount of life in her, and she beckons me to sit with her. As I begin to place myself on the ground I question her.
"How did you start this fire?" I asked.
"Oh!" she says in a way that suggests she is keeping a great secret. "We canít be telling you everything." She looked down at the flames and absently curled her hand through her matted hair. When she looks up at my face I notice her expression has changed. "My, you are certainly a darling."
"Thank you."
Across the square a procession has begun. The street urchins scatter across the plaza before a mob of strange figures. Tall and completely encased in azure tinted metal, their faces are concealed by black masks of animals: Ravens, lions, snarling dogs and vermin. All are carrying long staves, cruel blades set at the ends of them. I turn to the woman and whisper. "Who are they?"
"They protect us." The woman's face quivered noticeably.
"From whom?" I prodded, but the woman seemed to have become entranced by the approaching horde.
The advancing column poured around the stone prison in the center of the square. Their thick ranks parted, and I saw the two women who I had met just minutes before. The pale one made a motion to move away from the group and was immediately struck down by several blows. The dark one stood over the prone form of her companion before she too is bludgeoned viciously by the figures. Three of the things pick up the women's bodies and approach what appeared to be the entrance of the cell. Tossing them inside, they turn suddenly to mechanically wind their way back to a side street and disappear.
Getting up from the flames I approach the cell. As I step up to it I hear a low weak cry. A hand grasps my shoulder, pulling me back from the dark prison, I whirl to see the woman below me. "Tell me, do you have a name?" she asks with hard glare.
"No. Yes . . . " I feel a creeping derision in my spine. "I cannot remember," I confess.
The woman's grip relaxed momentarily. "Then indeed you are as lost as all are here."
I close the shrieking door and enter my home once again. Time seems too slow, my movements sluggish. I drop my coat carelessly on the cold broken floor and ascend the staircase leading to the fourth floor. My hand brushes stone briefly as I pass by one of the old sculptures, until it momentarily rests on one of the tarnished hooks on the walls that once held oil lamps. I sink to the floor, attempting to clutch on to the hook for support before I collapse. My mind feels heavy, as if a great spider was sitting in the cavity of my skull. I feel my hands shaking and I bring them up to my face.
Somewhere in the depths of these halls I seem to hear a noise, gradually rising in intensity. It starts as a low hum, a calm yet steady sound that makes my hair stand on end. Then it explodes in my temple, the dark form in my head bursts apart. I hear the noise and scream. In an instant it is over.
Too weak to move I fall into the realm of dream.
I am in Strassner's shop and he laughs at me while cutting out my heart. I try to push his hands away from my chest but my arms snap like twigs and fall sickeningly to the floor. The knife he is holding is very sharp. When he is done he holds my heart out for me, and I try to take it into one of my hands. When I fail I start to cry.
I am in my chamber now, and I hear the women now locked in the mammoth cage- I hear them calling to me, whispering with words that caress my consciousness. They coo my name, as if praying to some distant and forgotten god. Their words become too slurred for me to understand, yet somehow I know. I know what they wish.
I am no longer in the city. It is light. It is so light that it blinds me, and when I try to turn away from it I find that there is nowhere to turn to. A moment passes before I open my eyes.
The square is so dark that I squint as I approach the cell. The sky is a vast blanket of ebony, hanging low over the buildings surrounding me. My first steps up to one of the windows is uncontested. Two paces away I am stopped. A reedy voice seeps through the bars.
"Have you come for us?"
I see something move faintly in the darkness. Suddenly the pale girl's smiling face appears in the window before me. Though I care barely see, her red lips shine and her eyes glisten. Behind her I catch a rustle of motion. At the edge of hearing there is a slick sliding noise, though its origin was not apparent.
"Yes. I have come for you," I say.
"Open the door then," a level voice from inside whispers.
I move slowly to the entrance, nearly stumbling over an uneven cobblestone. The iron door opens easily. I step back as the pale girl moves out of the gloom. Claws grip the side of the portal, arms pulling forward a body rippling with strength. When I see her I feel my heart stop. Where she once had legs is a long mass of flesh, a snake like body covered with creamy scales. Supporting herself with the mass of the lower portion of herself she hovered above me. She smiles even wider as she wraps her coils around my body, squeezing my arms close to my chest. I feel my breath coming rapidly, and she tightens her grip, playfully, knocking the air out of my chest. I notice that her serpentine form is changing in color as it emerges from the blackness. From pearl to a somber grey, and finally an ebony black. At the other end of her, where I expected to emerge a tail, was the upper torso of the darker girl. She too lifted herself into the air.
"And now, little man, you will die," the dark head said in a hollow voice.
"Wait!" I shrieked with what I had left in me. The shimmering one lets me take in another few breaths before crushing me in her- their- grip. "Please! I released you! PLEASE!"
"There must be a sacrifice of blood! Indeed, many shall be made before this place is purified!" the pale one's words are lathered with sweet vengeance.
Something inside of me cracks. "Let me- Help you!" I feel my breath return as the coils slide off of my body.
"Few have offered to aid the Eyrines." Their eyes narrow as they regard me, and I wonder if what I am doing is right, or sane.
"We accept you," the dark girl says and glides towards me. Her sharp nails brush my face and, with a quick flick of her wrist she cuts open my cheek. As she licks the blood from my face the other speaks, her smile diminished. "Each evening you must provide for us a sacrifice. Only then will we not slay you. In exchange for your servitude we shall impart on you knowledge that will bring you much good fortune. Expect no more, no less."
"Farewell," she says as their bodies both retreat into the shadows of the square.
It is easy to find something, anything, that the Eyrines would accept. At first I capture animals, half dead canines and birds who had injured their wings. These were mostly ravens, though I occasionally came across a starling or pigeon. Innumerable rats and mice lived in the catacombs beneath my home, and for a while I would offer them. Once, when I was very desperate, I delivered a blind cat to the women. Every time they came it was when I had almost fallen into listless slumber on my cot, and would notice a rustling at the edge of my hearing. Then they would materialize out of the empty blackness of the room and one of them would fall upon the prey, snarling like an animal.
Finally, face and claws drenched in life blood, they would whisper to me in the dark, teaching me. The larger the sacrifice the greater the knowledge I received. I learned about electricity, the forbidden art. They showed me the machine in my basement, Generator they called it, which had lit up my temple ages ago. They taught me much that I found I could use to make my life comfortable. In my chamber I set a lamp, eventually I came to carrying it around the temple to inspect every tapestry, every shattered statue. I would gaze at these marvels for hours.
Yet, though the information they yielded to me was indeed useful, I found it gave me no pleasure in my heart. Indeed, their dark promises were empty. I could not forget my dream of the blinding light.
The man didn't even struggle when I leapt on him. I dragged him back through the front door of my home, bound his legs in twine, and placed him in the center of the room where I slept. He kept his gaze on the wall that I had faced him towards. The poor wretch. I almost feel that I was doing him justice, taking away his pain. I sit on my cot and stare at the warm glow of the power the Eyrines had given me. I reach over to the lamp and stem the light. The room fell black.
What are you doing, I ask myself. What have you done?
I came suddenly out of a distant thought to the present, seeing the face of the dark face approaching from the shadows. The pale one followed suit, leering at the soulless man as they glide in the air around him. His expression remains blank as the dark one latches a strong black hand onto his arm and tears it out of its socket. He never says a word as the women feast on his body, his blood staining the floorboards. The dark one was the first to finish, and pulls herself towards my still form. "Now, little man-" her soft words are cut off in mid-sentence.
"Silence!" I whisper harshly. "I have no wish for your petty pleasures, for what I crave is something much more than you could ever give me."
"Oh? Is that truth, little man?" the pale one says, her face darkened with jets of gore.
"Yes. I tire of these games. You once spoke of cleansing this city, but now you merely delight in slaughter."
The Furies smile at my words. They smile with great toothy grins covered with blood and draw closer to me, indeed crawling onto my cot and drew me close to them. Holding me with their terrible arms they rose into the air and held me between them.
"Oh, we have done quite well in letting you live, little man. You shall learn our art."
It was done. With the women's instructions I spent almost a year constructing the object, the ancient artifact that would purify this hell. I run a trembling hand through my hair. I realize how much time I have spent here in this irregular room, in this old temple of some long forgotten age, in this city which had twisted my soul the day I arrived. I feel a regretful tear run down my cheek, and pass over the thin scar the dark Eyrine had given me months ago. I hold my salvation in my hands. A small metal sphere.
There is a knock at my door.
I realize that something is amiss.
"Friend?" Strassner's voice echoes in the hallway.
My fingers fumble as I depress a button on the sphere that had previously seemed to be its smooth surface. There came a satisfying hum of power inside the ball.
"Open the door, friend! We have seen you using the art!" Strassner's voice becomes desperate. I hear a loud thump against the portal, and know that they've come to kill me.
But then, I'm already dead.
The door bursts open, the rusted hinge flying across the chamber. Strassner runs at me with his hands outstretched, behind him a group of the masked figures pours into my room. I don't feel anything when Strassner breaks my neck. For a second my head flops around on my shoulders and then I fall. Still alive, I see the twins advance out of the shadows. The men who had overpowered them in the square earlier are torn apart by their fury, black ichor showering the walls in an orgy of violence. I see Strassner ripped in two before the world becomes black. All I can feel is the cool metal in my hand and the vibration inside of it.
For one second more I spend my life in darkness.
Then all is light.
