Chương 123: Smoldering Embers

Ch. 123 - Smoldering Embers When the tide of bottle up evil thinned into a fog, they strode forward. Now the blade could study the details of the plain stone corridor and its rotted contents, and even without any obvious signs of violence, it could see that something was very wrong with the place. While it studied the etheric nature of the hall, its wielder whispered a few words and brought a small glowing orb of light into existence.

The blade ignored it, though; it had nearly forgotten that the dark existed, or that Lucian couldn't see in it. The way that it had seen the world for some weeks now was that it was woven into place by millions of glowing threads. Usually, the color and the brightness of that glow told it the most. It could see at a glance which of the souls contained in its ruby pommel was a greater soul, a human soul, or even a lesser monster soul based solely on how brightly they glowed.

The same was true with mages and other heroes in the world. Here, though, since nothing glowed much brighter than anything else, it relied on the texture of that weave, and it was clear from those details alone that something happened here that should not have because all of those threads were wrong. Some were knotted so heavily that something terrible had clearly happened nearby, and others were so frayed that, well… It wasn't clear what magic could have done that.

It asked its wielder to avoid those rooms, though, because it worried that merely walking on such stones might be enough to make the whole thing collapse, or worse, cease to be at all. Lucian moved through the centuries-old temple, leaving footprints in the dust, as they moved cautiously, exploring the smaller rooms and side passages as they went.

The Ebon Blade could see that the polluted river of mana was surging up from the depths, through the main staircase even as the otherflows of mana descended in the same direction via the building's megalithic architecture, but they were in no rush to descend, and looked for clues in the rooms that the weapon deemed safe enough to enter. Unfortunately, though, there wasn't much to find.

Centuries had turned almost everything that might be found to dust, and they found only splinters of wood that might have been dust, and piles of dust that might have been anything at all.

"If only I had the spells, I could see the things that once were," Lucian assured the blade, but it didn't answer. It didn't care about might-have-beens or almosts, and studied the walls of this place instead. While the stones were mostly blank, there were a few inscriptions and statues, and it studied each, hoping to trigger some latent memory, but it found none. This place is almost as empty as the mirror's tomb, it thought as they moved from one room to the next. Emptier, really. At least that place had bodies.

Truthfully, it kept expecting that they would turn a corner and find a mangled corpse or two, but there was never anything there. If there ever had been, it had long ago turned to dust. They didn't find much more on the lower floor, or even the floor below that. The only things that changed were that the air got fouler and the floor plan got smaller. Some rooms were labeled here, including one that read Forbidean Vault, but the thick door was ajar, and there was nothing interesting inside.

They didn't find anything interesting until they reached the very heart of the forge, and found that they were still lit, bathing the room in a ghastly orange light. It glowed so intensely that even as the blade studied it, it was half blinded by the power of the flames. That light should have illuminated the room, but instead it all but obscured the other forges, the statues, and some of the stranger decorations on the walls.

It didn't need to see anything, though, because it remembered, and as it looked at the room, images flashed through the Ebon Blade's mind as it contemplated the scene it had witnessed in its earlier flashbacks. Except for centuries of age and neglect, nothing had changed. This place, the blade whispered. These are the fires where I was shaped and enchanted.

"That's not fire," Lucian said finally as he stopped well short of the burning hearth in the room's center.

"That's…" His words trailed off as the statue standing next to what the blade realized was not a fiery portal to hell opened its glowing red eyes and regarded them both. Through the blinding glow of the hellfire the weapon had barely been able to make out the details of the statue, but now that it awoke, and moved to one side, the Ebon Blade could see it was no statue at all; it was a living thing that had stood so still, for so long, that dust which had settled on it had turned it gray.

That changed, though, as soon as it started to move, revealing swaths of red flesh beneath. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. That transformation was its least disturbing. The demon had posed itself perfectly as a man standing there in the robes of the Aethearchy; it might have even posed itself as a specific man, the weapon couldn't say. That humanity evaporated almost as quickly as the dust, though, as the thing unfolded, for lack of a better word.

With each movement, its robes separated into more and more arms. Soon, it was nothing but a pair of legs and a leering face, but that face was anything but human. It was too long, for starters, with a pointed chin and large closed eyes. When it finally spoke, though, and revealed just how alien it was, the weapon could feel Lucian recoil.

"Visitors," it growled, "And after so long. I'd almost given up hope. Have you come to renew the pact with blood?" Those words were not spoken from its mouth, as any normal person might have expected, for its mouth contained only a giant eyeball. Instead, teeth-filled mouths hid behind both his eyelids, and when they opened, they spoke together in a disturbing syncopation that was disturbing, even for the Ebon Blade.

"Pact?" Lucian asked in confusion as he tightened his grip on the weapon's hilt.

"No, we've come to learn more about this place."

"Why bother?" the demon asked.

"Even if you do… Even if you swear to the pact and bring me the finest souls, I'd be hard pressed to forge you a finer weapon than that." As it spoke, the demon's arms twitched restlessly. At first, the weapon thought it was just chaotic movement, but as it studied the confused motions, it could see that most of them involved something you might do to a weapon. There were some arms swinging invisible hammers, and others holding tongs or pumping bellows.

It might not actually be holding tools, but its nervous ticks told the blade that it certainly knew how.

"This weapon… have you seen it before?" Lucian asked. The demon looked long and hard. Almost all of its limbs froze in place as it studied the Ebon Blade from across the room. The blade could feel the thing's gaze roaming over it, and that only intensified as it produced other eyes, apparently from nowhere. It opened its hands and splayed its fingers to reveal an eye on the end of each finger tip. It opened other fists to reveal large eyes resting on its palms.

At one point, the weapon counted fifty eyes boring into its soul, and it felt paralyzed by them. Then, all of them vanished as it finally opened its mouths to speak again.

"Forged in hellfire, tempered in dragon's blood," the demon said, mostly to itself as it studied them from where it stood on the far side of the pit.

"Soul scribed and deftly enchanted, too. I've seen it's like only once before, but even then… Well, its runes are too delicate for anything made here. The one I made was simpler. Where did you get this one?" Lucian was terrified at that abomination, but somehow its question tore the answer out of him.

"I… This is that blade. It has grown and evolved," the blade tried to strangle that answer in his throat, but somehow the gaunt, red-skinned monster's words overwhelmed its wielder just as its gaze overwhelmed the weapon.

"Evolved? Interesting…" the hunched thing growled as it slowly straightened its back, gaining another foot or two in height.

"Those deceitful mages had hoped for such a thing… But there were no signs. I considered it a crowning success, but they considered my work a failure."

"I… What happened here?" Lucian asked. Looking around and gesturing at the quiet forge room. At first, the blade wasn't sure what its wielder meant until it looked around more. Only then did it see what he meant, and even it was appalled. The rest of this strange temple had been built of stone, but everything in this blinding room was made out of things that had once been people. The stones in the walls were people folded into compact cubes, and the forges were people that had been stretched to bizarre proportions.

That was true of the chimneys and the anvils, too. Screaming faces were everywhere. Even the hammers and other tools resembled the twisted limbs of small children when it examined them more closely. After viewing all of that, the blade wasn't entirely sure they hadn't stepped into the pit already.

"Happened?" the demon asked, cocking its head to one side.

"Nothing happened here. All is as it should be. The forge fires burn, and the tools are ready. I need only a sworn pact and the souls to work with, and we can make whatever you desire."

"Yeah, but why… Why haven't you made weapons in so long?" the boy asked.

"Time means little to me," the demon answered, its hands starting to twitch again. This time they weren't hammering, though, or pumping. This time, they held imaginary weapons and made fists that threatened violence.

"And if you stand in hell completely, you'll find it doesn't pass at all like you expect it to."

"I don't think I'll ever get the chance to find out…" Lucian answered, already starting to back toward the door.

"It's not really…"

"Oh, but I insist!" the demon yelled as it vaulted across the pit toward them, launching a dozen fists and claws on arms that were much too long in their direction.