Hrulian

Chapter One: Walking Into Darkness

Fire blossomed through the heart of shadows, a single flare of light that sheared through the hall and illuminated paintings of men and women centuries old, brilliantly colorful for a moment before fading back into gloom.  The fire passed on, on, until itself was dissipated into the stone pass of another corridor.  Darkness reigned again, falling over masonry and rugs not touched by men since the Kings had fallen.  Silence.
  A sound like the intake of breath hissed through the hall and another ring of fire blossomed from a figure at the entrance, a man in black and brown and gray, swathed in cloth and fabrics that lapped each other in twisted fashions, no single color knowing where it began and where it ended.  The flames briefly lit a gaunt face of weathered years, then it was gone and fleeing towards the end of the hall.  Running footsteps chased after it, a sound not heard in the Hlruian Sane in near a thousand years.  Then silence as the fire again chased itself to ashes.
  "I see no traps, Darnst, we are taking unnecessary precautions," a voice from the entrance called out.  A man bearing a torch rounded the corner, his smooth, hairless face aflame in the orange light.  Gray eyes searched the hall revealed before him, a sneer embedded in his lips as he saw the stone untouched and faded in time's relentless grasp.  "Mayhap this would go quicker if you did not stop us ever thirty feet, or at the end of every hall, or the step of every door, or..." his voice faded as another blast of fire lit the hall.  "And would you stop flinging those about!" he cried.  "You may need that power come the Descent; we don't know what guardians still work down there."
  Darnst turned to the man, his gaunt face unmoving in emotionless droll.  "I do not fear the workings of centuries dead men, Thrace, my power grows daily."
  "And yet you creep about as if you're a petty thief," the hairless man laughed.  "My friend, you contradict yourself amiably, but I am growing weary of watching you gain a fort-step for every hour we've been here.  I'm going on."
  Thrace pushed past the hard stare of the wizard and made his way to the halls end.  A second corridor opened to the right, ending in a octagonal room of doors of varying types: steel and wood and other lesser known things; one even looked to be made of bone, though it held a gleam like polished iron.
  "We are to take the northeastern door," Darnst said.
  "Northeastern?  I thought it was west.  Or maybe I am thinking of the Craven Wing."
  "West is the Beholder Wing, east is Craven.  Did you even read the papers?"
  Thrace laughed, an odd looking expression for his pleasure-less face.  "I skimmed it, my friend.  Only the end interested me."
  "That was a roster of prisoners.  Hardly worthwhile if we can't get there."
  "Oh, worthwhile my friend; and I knew you would read the rest; it is your style after all.  But I intend to find exactly who I am seeking when we reach the prisons.  There are some chained down there that I would rather not waken."
  "Then I would not have you leading," Darnst said.  "There are some with power greater than mine, after all.  And I understand the Deep Wing is not entirely recorded."
  "Indeed, parts of it are older than the Kings.  This place wasn't built by men.  Well, not all of it," he felt his hands along the stone walls.  "There are old secrets here."
  "And that is why I am cautious."  The wizard pushed open the northeastern door.  The stale smell of timeless age came to him as he did, forcing a hacking breath from his lungs.  "Cursed ancients, I thought there would at least be caretakers here."
  "Better for us there is not."  Thrace pushed past him, his torch revealing iron rails and rotted wood molds running the length of the hall before them.  A gray marble floor ran before them, smooth and blemish-less but layered in a dust that had not stirred for an age.  "Are you sure this is the right Wing?"
  "Yes," Darnst answered.  "The Deep wing is oldest, but it's entrance hall was built first when Agorthane took hold of Hlruian.  He took great care in its fashioning, making it most beautiful of the seven.  Then he sealed the old entrance with stone and wards and bade no man to enter the deepest chambers.  What lie there even the book would not say, though perhaps there was naught at all."
  "Doubtful; Agorthane once wrote of the deep things that haunted his Sane.  He feared them.  It's a mystery he did not seal off the entire wing."
  "He held to a  belief that the new prisoners would be more fearful of the Deep Wing, and more likely to be pleasant during their stay."
  Thrace laughed.  "It was a life sentence to be sent to the Sane, friend.  It was more a torture than a discipline, I think.
  Darnst's emotionless face betrayed no amusement.  "Perhaps," he said.
  The marble floor led them on a faceless path for hours, the sound of their feet and the snap of the torch the only noise.  The iron rails to either side were faded and rusted, holes opening in spots where the rust had entirely devoured; but there were areas of the corridor where the iron had been replaced by an obsidian steel, black and polished even as the iron around them fell away.  Here the craft of the Romedun was plain to see, the obsidian finely wrapped and twisted into a spiraling rail, its edges inlaid in silver metal that shone red in the torchlight.  A few times they passed gaps in the obsidian where anchors in the wall sat waiting for the builders who had laid them but never returned.
  The walk itself began to push Thrace's thoughts back to Halifast, back to the stone halls of his home.  As a child it had seemed the hallways of his castle went on forever, and he could run them until his legs failed and he tumbled into a heap before one of the grand doors that towered over him.  But Halifast was far away, and the halls there were gilded in red rugs and golden tassels with great pictures of ancestors and old battles overlooking.  Here the walls were faceless, a single blank stone way that passed in the torch and faded back into the darkness.  And here there would be no servants to aid a young man, nor maids to pass his time when he was restless.  No father to instruct a young boy in the ways of the Fold.  Darnst was his only company, just as it had been for the past decade, and just as he imagined it would be for the next.
  "I remember nothing of an endless hallway," he said to his wizard friend.
  Darnst's passionless eyes did not leave the hall before him.  "The Deep Hall is eleven miles long.  At its end is the Stair of Wails.  We will meet our first prisoners there."  He looked to the Thrace.  "If any still live."
  "Not likely.  I assume we are the first here since the Kings."
  The wizard grunted, but said nothing.
  On they went.  Time passed and feet became weary.  Twice Thrace stopped them to rest, only to be met by his friends blank stare.  "You said we move too slowly, now you will stop us?"  But he offered no resistance; they took rest under the flat walls.
  The seventh hour had come and gone when the hall suddenly changed.  One moment they had been following blank slate and missing rails, the next they were standing in the mouth of a low cave, the stone given way to rock and salt; a single doorway stood carved in the far end, blank and open, the Stair of Wails.
  "We have reached Horzked," Darnst noted.  The Sane had been carved from the rocks of the great mountain, and all paths led into its depths, some deeper than others.  Below the weathered and bare face, Horzked held the deepest of man's evils; the prisoners within most dangerous and fearsome of the ancient times, when the Kings held the land.  Once it had bustled with the stomp of guards and the clash of swords in training, but as with all things after the Fall, little remained of its former glory.  It had been abandoned, left to the darkness beneath the mountain, and those held within were left to their silent doom.  Men forgot of them, left the island of Hrluian, and the world devolved to darkness and defeat as the Scourge roamed freely over Evermoore.
  "Shall we continue?" Darnst said.
  Thrace returned the letter to his cloak.  "Yes, I think we shall."

Beyond the archway the world was suddenly dark.  There were no windows within the Horkzed, the rock was many feet thick and the prisoners within had not been ones for luxury.  Shallow indents in wall marked where guards had once stood post, their bases cut out in the form of crude seats.  Overhead a single chain ran off into the darkness, bound to the roof every ten feet by a single spoke; what it's use had been escaped Thrace.  Beneath them the floor was flat and measured, but cracks ran along the length of it in may places, and the dust was piling high near the walls.
  "I think you are right, Thrace.  We may be the first living beings within these walls for an age," Darnst said.  He bent low and felt along the floor, dust billowing away from his touch.  When he rose his hand was covered in grime.
  "You should wash that," Thrace noted.  Darnst did not reply.
  Into the gloom they went.  The light of their torch seemed frail before them, as if the darkness had somehow grown stronger in the depths of the earth; twenty paces ahead the light ended suddenly, giving way to deep shadows.  Silence was also heavy.  The walls of stone should have echoed their words over the hall, but instead all sound fell like weights around them.  Thrace felt an overwhelming desire to shout and break the quiet, but restraint was the better in him.  They pressed on.  The roof dipped, drawing down, whether by design or time they did not know, but there were spots where Thrace found himself ducking as he looked up, seeing the single chain almost upon him.  The walls drew in.  There were no signs of prison doors.
  "Are you sure this is the right place?" Thrace said at last.
  "I am sure."
  Thrace looked about once for effect, then smiled wryly.  "Then where are the prisoners, friend?  I do not see even a single cell in this place.  Just rocks, and a lot of them at that."
  "We are in the right place," Darnst said.  "The Deep Wing is under the Horkzed, buried at the end of this tunnel.  As for the lack of cells, well, the mountain was not stable enough to dig too deeply and the architects feared collapse.  The chain overhead was most likely what the prisoners were bound to."
  "A single chain?"  Thrace looked up.  The chain seemed very small and powerless.  "I do not think a chain would hold hardened criminals for long, friend.  Precocious though the idea may have been at the time, it would seem an unsuitable constraint to the more dangerous of foes that were held here.  Arkanium comes to mind.  Can you imagine him being held by a chain?"  He laughed.
  "Arkanium was kept in the Beholder Wing, Thrace.  Only the easily intimidated would be placed here.  We are standing over a deep pit of prisons, filled with the most unimaginable evils the world has ever spawned.  The thought alone would keep many in line."
  Thrace smirked.  "But if it didn't, I imagine this would be one terrible place to work."
  "It did."
  "But if it didn't!"
  Darnst merely frowned.
  On they went.  The sides of the cave drew in again, tighter and tighter, until it was so close that they were forced to walk in file.  The chain continued on overhead, but at points it began to droop lower and lower, even brushing the tops of their heads at times as the spokes that held it aloft became fewer and further apart.  The floor became uneven, and at places rifts opened up, sometimes inches deep; very threatening to the idle walker, a broken foot in the depths of the Sane might mean death.
  Hours passed.  Or minutes.  Thrace was entirely unsure how long they had been in the depths, but his feet told him it had been too long.  They were aching with the constant scrabble and slow moving steps over the stone.  Finally he demanded a stop, much to Darnst' dismay.
  "We are nearing the end," the wizard said.
  "And it won't do us any good for you to have to carry me in, will it?  I need to rest."  So they stopped at the edge of a particularly wide crack in the floor, the edges of which looked as if they had been filed by a long knife.  Darnst held the torch out before him and frowned.
  "The path is becoming dangerous," he said.  "I wonder if this part of the Sane was taken care of even in Agorthane's time?"
  "Doesn't seem that way," Thrace said.  "Unless something else is breaking it, of course.  Maybe the whole island is crumbling."  He laughed.
  "That seems unlikely," Darnst said, missing the humor in his friends voice.  "Islands of this size rarely undergo any significant breaking, and it is near enough to the mainland that coastal towns would be aware of such disturbances.  Of course, the breaking would also entail structural damage to the buildings outlying the Deep Wing, which I noted none on our way in.  It seems - ."
  "Friend," Thrace held out a hand, "I was only joking.  Obviously the disrepair is the result of time, not the island falling apart."  He leaned in close to the gap, feeling along the edges with his hand.  "The sides do seem unnaturally smooth though.  Like someone was working on it.  A repair crew, maybe?"
  "Also unlikely.  There were no ledger receipts in the King's Record dating to the time this was built.  Any repairs would have been made much later, and such would be obvious to the eye."  Darnst looked into the crack.  "It does seem odd," he said.
  "Give me the torch."  Thrace beckoned with his hand.  Darnst obliged and Thrace held the light down into the crevice, slowly passing it along the edges.  "Here!" he cried suddenly.  "Look, there is writing here!"
  Darnst scrambled to the edge and leaned over, his bald head gleaming against the light of torch.  "It is Romedun," he said, looking up.  Then back again he said, "It reads, 'Here marks the last of those who Know.  Remembering those who Were.  Kine teaches all.'"  The wizard rose.  "Kine?" he said.
  "Perhaps it is misspelled?" Thrace said.  "Time, perhaps?  Or another word.  Seems an odd thing to scrabble on the edge of a crevice."
  "Unless it was so important that it could not be left alone."  Darnst looked up suddenly, then stood.  Reaching out his hand he grabbed the chain and yanked.  The spoke over head dropped suddenly and the chain fell with a clatter.  "Whoever was tied here was not tied well.  These spokes were driven in deep and warded by magi.  It would not be easy to remove them.  Assuredly not worth the effort for a single insane scrawling."
  "So they broke free and decided to use their freedom to write a note," Thrace said.  Then looking down again he added, "Why would they not flee with their freedom?  Certainly it was better to die trying than live your days to their last in this pit."
  "They did not believe escape was possible," Darnst said.
  "Or did not want to escape," Thrace smiled.  "I'm turning that Kine word over in my head, friend, only I don't think it's a word; I think it's a person."
  "A fellow prisoner?"
  "Yes, but not of the Romedun.  The prison roster had three entire pages devoted to known inhabitants of the Sane's deepest reaches, in the places that were here before the Kings came.  Kine sounds very much like a name I read, though I cannot recall who or what it might have been; many of the names were in a foreign tongue that I had not seen before."
  They looked down into the crevice again.  The writing that scrawled the side was legible, if not crude, and the hand was fine, the hand of a learned man.  Above the message was a single long line that drifted across the crack, then dropped sharply and suddenly into the very bottom of the crevice; a single arrow capped it's end.  Thrace frowned.
  "What do you think that's pointing to?" he said.
  Darnst leaned over, reaching as far as he could into the gap.  His fingers brushed the very end, just below the arrow, but the rock felt solid and ancient.  "I don't know," he said, rising up.  "This writing is old, but the earth below it is far older, and assuredly not touched by Men.  Perhaps it points to something below?"
  "Below the gap?"
  "No, below the prison," the wizard said, a gleam forming in his eye.  "We may have stumbled already into the secret of our journey, friend.  Do you have the letter with you?"
  Thrace reached into his coat and pulled forth a letter bound by twine; it was simple, unadorned, and terribly crumpled from a long journey, but the writing therein was still apparent and clean.  Darnst took it and unraveled it, holding it out before the light of the torch.  For a moment he did not speak but his eyes shifted and narrowed, and once he opened his mouth only to close it again as he thought better of his words; then when he had finished looking it over he bent to a knee and held the paper to the side of the crevice, mashing it next to the scrawled message.
  "The message is incomplete," he said, looking at the paper; "our letter is incomplete as well.  Look and listen! I will read the letter alone: 'Words written but never spoken from below.  Lost.  These words pass through the flames of the Sane.  So well, Insidiously.'"  He laughed and shook his head, like a child with a new found skill.  "Now listen as I add the message to the letter, inserting the words where the letter has these so confusing breaks."
  He leaned over and began to read: "Here marks the last of those who Know. Words written but never spoken from below.  Remembering those who were. Lost. These words pass through the flames of the Sane.  Kine teaches all.  So well, Insidiously."  He looked up.  "Does that remind you of any name on the roster?"
  Thrace was smiling from ear to ear.  "Of course, dear friend.  I know now who has called us here, the name comes to the fore in my mind.  Tell me, wizard, what do you know of Insidious Kine?"
  Silence deadened the air between them.  Darnst sat back.  The wizards eyes dimmed as he began to think, his mind slowly drifting backwards along the temporal paths into the realms of the past, until searching there he found what he sought and returned forcefully to his own.  He grimaced.  "That is a name from books I thought myth," he said.  "In fact, I recall only two which even prose it, and in one it is but styles of a poem; certainly not of note to me."
  "And the other?" Thrace said.
  "A religious text.  The Compendium of God, a work by the one named Issachar, a called 'prophet' of his day.  He wrote The Book of Ages as well.  A much more known and received text in Evermoore, one I have read many times, though I have never been one for the notion of God."
  "You are not for many things," said Thrace, "and I have argued  with you before, and I doubt we shall reach new conclusions in the dungeons of the most heinous prison known.  So tell me what was in the Compendium?"
  The wizard leaned back, resting against the craggy black wall behind him.  He closed his eyes, drawing deeply into the meditations that all wizards were wont to use in times, and began to recite as if from the pages of the text itself, perhaps even so:

    We stand now before the Kine, servants of Him who was before.  They are lesser than the First Appri, not so gifted in His power, yet not so lacking.  Thusly some incline to action, whilst others incline to thought, but all seem willing to serve the First, and choose thusly among them which suits them best; to Ankor, of whom action most immediate is elevated, I see many assemble, more even than the rest; and among them are Evacius, Adulius, and Insidious, from whom the Kine gather life, and from whom beget them all.

Darnst opened his eyes.  Thrace was leaning close, eyes wide.  The torch was in his hand hanging precariously over the gap.
  "That is all?" Thrace said.
  "It has been thirty years since I read the text, be thankful I remember even that."
  Thrace leaned back onto the opposite wall and buried his face in his hand.  For a moment he did not speak but sighed loudly.  Then he looked up, most obviously perplexed.
  "So we take it that Insidious Kine is one of many."
  "First of many," Darnst interrupted.
  "First, but then what?" Thrace said.  "The name Ankor is not buried in time, I know that.  The Sundering is as much his doing as that of Hircine and Wregalloth, and time does not forget so soon."  He shook his head.  "What does it mean to us?  It cannot be a particularly wondrous thing to be called into the depths of the Hrluian by a creature that pre-dates Men by an order of time itself; and one that allied with the very evil that bred this tepid Blight plaguing our lands even now!  We seem very much on a darker road, friend."
  "A darker road indeed, if you are inclined to believe the words of Issachar.  I, for one, do not."
  "Yes, yes, athiestic to the end.  But it seems folly to pre-suppose all of Issachar's words simply for others that he wrote.  We know Ankor is real, of that we cannot doubt; that this Kine is allied to him is not trifle religion, and I see no reason to disbelieve for its sake.  We may be walking into the lair of a very evil creature."
  "I do not pre-suppose invalidity, Thrace, but merely find trouble believing the words of Issachar.  Mayhap they are true.  We are certain of Ankor, whether he is beyond time or not, and we are certain that no good can come of allegiance with him.  I do not believe Issachar, but I do believe reason, and it seems reasonable to continue with caution."  He paused for a moment.  "Or to continue not at all."
  Thrace furrowed his brow at the notion.  He certainly did not wish to turn back, not after the great lengths and many dangers they had faced in a Blighted world to come so far; yet the doubts were growing in his mind, like vines over the fence of a lax gardener, slowly at first, but the longer he lingered the greater they became, until they covered all directions.  "I am unsure," he said.  "To turn back does not seem a greater choice than going on; at least forward we may yet find new happenings unlooked for, but we know what lies behind.  It has been a great wonder of mine ever since we reached the Sane, whether we should even be able to return to Evermoore.  Eskalon was more than lightly infected with the Blight, it was rampant as anywhere else.  I have even wondered if this is a one-way trip."  He frowned.  "No, though the way is fraught now with doubt, I cannot in faith turn back.  What is there to return to?  A world falls behind us, Men seeking refuge in places fortified and strong; but the Blight creeps ever on.  Soon there will be nowhere left to turn except the Mists, or perhaps to flee over the Sea, though none know what lies there.  No, let us face our fortunes here.  Better to die to an ancient, worthy foe than to a creeping, faceless plague."
  Thrace looked to his friend and held out a hand.  "Are you with me?"
  Darnst stretched out his own hand and grasped Thrace's forearm.  "I am with you, friend, to whatever end we seek.  There is no hope in the world behind."
  They let go.  Each sat with backs against the wall.  Then for a time they slept peacefully.  But ever was in their thoughts, shifting like a worm beneath the sand, the wonder of what lie ahead.


They woke much the same as they slept, against the wall and facing in.  However their torch had burnt away, as well as the light it offered, much to Thrace's dismay.  Darnst awakened a blue flame to guide them, but the wizard was not shy of its drain on his body.  "We shall only pass for a while like this.  I cannot keep the elements so constrained for any great length, especially here where there is nothing to draw from."
  So they went by the ghostly blue light.  The way was not easier.  The gaps were frequent and growing longer, some so great that they were forced to jump the distance, during which Darnst was most wearied.  At other times they came across parts of the tunnel where the ceiling had collapsed, blocking their way until they could muster the strength to lift the rubble away, or Darnst could gather the necessary magics.  It was a weary road.  When at last they stopped to rest again, both were at the end of their strength.
  "I see now why there was no need for cells," Thrace said as he fell against the wall.  "No man would be foolish enough, when caught so deeply, as to run this way or that.  It would be suicide by time or falling.  You would not escape, for sure."
  "Neither would they be so bolstered by provisions as we," Darnst said.  As he did he waved his hand and a gray swirl appeared before him.  He reached his hand into the misty apparition, felt about for a moment, and then pulled forth a sack.  He took an apple from the sack and gave it to Thrace.  "Were it not for Occamas wonderfully simple realm, we should be lost without food, dying slowly in darkness."
  "Yes, yes, all the more reason I have wondered if this trip runs one way."  Thrace smiled at his friend.  "Of course, when one has a wizard, nothing should be beyond possible."
  "If my name were Falian, or perhaps Ethoritus, then you might be correct.  I am neither."
  "And neither have managed to halt this Blight, have they?  Well, dear friend, I think you must be at least somewhat to their own power then."  Thrace nodded, as if assuring himself.  "Not that it will matter in the least if this Kine fellow is ill-tempered at our coming.  What do you suppose a Kine is, anyway?"
  "A spirit," Darnst answered.  "I have never seen one, so I cannot say."

A silence fell between them.  Darnst extinguished his blue flame, casting them into darkness so deep they could not see their hands in front of their face.  Neither could find peace enough to sleep.  The air was becoming wet as they traveled deeper into the Sane, clinging to them as they sat.  Water slicked the walls and seeped into their clothes as they lie against them.  Somewhere ahead the sound of it condensing and falling to the earth in a soft plink could be heard.  They fancied that further in they could hear the sound of rushing water.
  Thrace roused them again after what he felt was an hours time.  They were both sore and weary and not in the slightest mood for travel, but Thrace could not shake the constant sound of water ahead, and it gave him hope for what he might find.  In an ethereal flash the blue flame appeared before Darnst.  They pressed on again.
  Suddenly Darnst stopped.  "Look," he said, pointing to the blue flame.  The fire was bending, falling back towards them, as if weighed down by a heavy wind.  Then it tilted up again.  It stayed that way for a moment before falling again.  Darnst frowned.
  "Something wards the passage," he said.  "It is not meant to stop my magic from entering, else the fire would have died.  It is meant to keep magic in."  He cocked his head and thought for a moment, then turning he held out his hand back the way they had come.  From his hand another blue light sprang, but this one was not bound to the wizard and sped on, fading into the darkness.  Twenty paces away it ran into something unseen, but very much real, and smothered.
  "So we have passed the Great Ward the books spoke of," Thrace said.  "Excellent.  We should be at the Descent any moment."
  "It would appear we already are," Darnst said.  The wizard reached out, as he did the blue flame grew brighter and larger, fire building upon fire, until it was the size of his chest.  He dipped the flame forward a few paces, the light extending outward and before them, and when he halted Thrace was left to gasp.
  "Now this is the work of ancients," he declared.