[Closed] Away, Away

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 34 Dentis, 2719
The Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon

The ghost writhed like smoke made of darkness; it billowed and pulsed and shifted with every passing moment, never the same. Nkemi stood, watching it, her breath a pale cloud, her gaze fixed on the darkness, as if she could see through to the fire which burned beneath.

Nkemi held the ward on her breath; she held it in her mind, and she held it all through her. She held it stretching out beyond them like a map; she could not see the contours of it but she knew they were there, gleaming, spilling forth in mona and life.

Ezra rose at her side, and offered his name also.

The ghost shivered; it drew down close to them, pouring itself into a vessel to match theirs. It did not fit; it could not, anymore, Nkemi understood without understanding. She watched, standing straight with all the fullness she had to offer.

Everus Verona, the ghost greeted them. Nkemi bowed her head in respectful greeting once more, for all who were holy were worthy of respect, in the name of the Circle if not their own. She thought of the echoing, chanting songs; she thought of the Haras’turga, the pouring of water on to dirt, the giving with no expectation of return, with only gratitude.

Nkemi watched. Let me closer so I can be warm, the ghost asked; darkness writhed on the floor around them, spilling forth where it could not be contained. The shape of the ghost changed too, movement beneath stillness, like deep water. A locked section, Ezre said, bricked over and sealed with a ward. The edge of Nkemi’s gaze flicked sideways, and the corner of her mouth rose in the tiniest of smiles. It was easy to forget sometimes the age of her companion; he held himself with the dignity of a man. He was, Nkemi thought, tolerant and a little amused, only a boy after all.

Nkemi turned back towards the ghost, with the fullness of her attention once more; there was nothing of the smile left on her solemn face. She looked down at her own hands, small and dark, and then at the strange shadowy shape before them. She thought of it.

She would have liked, Nkemi knew, to offer comfort. She would have held, gratefully, the hand of a dying woman; she would have knelt and sat as long as it took, whatever crumbled around them, and held on, and offered the warmth and strength of her hands, if it might have offered the slightest easing.

Nkemi knew enough to know she did not know, here, what it meant to offer a hand, or her warmth; she felt the chill of the chamber prick over her. She ached with the loneliness of the creature before her; she held firm, fast, inside the boundaries of herself, and did not open any wounds she did not know how to heal.

Do not give too deeply; do not stretch yourself too thin. It was a lesson taught all clairvoyants who reached outside themselves, and all prefects who reached for justice. It was a lesson spoken and felt; it was a lesson which, unlearned, made itself known and demanded respect. Nkemi rooted herself in her own vessel; she knew its contours and shapes, and she filled them, every drop of her, and held on. The upkeep rang through her teeth, and throbbed in her temples.

“I do not know,” Nkemi spoke truth, simple and honest. She looked at the ghost; she bowed her head, but did not close her eyes. “I know that we are here, now: I know that we will listen.”

“I know,” the Mugrobi said, lifting her gaze once more, “that truth is a pillar of honor. I know that truth is a sacred thing,” Nkemi settled her hand over her chest, and felt the beating pounding of her heart beneath, fast and hard. She breathed in deep, and exhaled out once more, her breath tangling and shifting in the air, and lowered her hand.

“I know that truth may outlast even the cycle,” Nkemi promised, softly. “Speak your truth to us, Everus Verona, and let it wash you clean of fear.”

[Ezre Vks]

Brunnhold Campus

Late Afternoon on the 34th of Dentis, 2719

Ezre held onto the wispy threads of their warding spell, thoughts wandering for a moment. Who had Everus Verona been? Was there a way to find their real name in the records of the Everine? Was their original name burned from the history of their existence in the same way a Vessel's soul was burned from its body when a raen took their place within their flesh? He wanted to know but this was not the time to ask. He wasn't even sure the ghost would remember, anyway.

Let me closer and Hold my hand, it asked, and the Hexxos Guide felt the warm trickle of temptation—honey poured in the brief Hoxian autumn sun, slow and opaque through his mind. He knew the words and understood the hunger, the insatiable chill of being trapped between the heat of life, and the nothingness of death. He sighed, the cloud of his breath drifting between clenched teeth and a taut, tattooed lower lip.

Perhaps he could lead them back—

The ghost seemed far less luminous than most—just a flickering glow was all it seemed to produce in comparison to the dancing candle that lit the humble sphere of their supernatural boundary. Instead, it was made more of darkness—the opposite of everything he expected—and that darkness caressed the edges of their ward as if looking for holes. There was more than the truth it longed to share and the dark-haired student was quite sure the sensation of the monic entropy swirling around it was familiar. He'd heard talk of it before, murmured in a thick cloud of incense around the comfortable charcoal hearth fires in the rumble of Deftung consonants.

It was not the mona galdori knew. Not anymore. It was something different. Something else.

The Mugrobi subprefect glanced in his direction; he didn't miss that flicker of a smile, of curious amusement. He knew the expression, and without that extra filter of rhakor, there was little Nkemi could do to hide that thrill of interest, that rush of fear, and of excitement, and also of confirmation that warmed her face from the otherwise well-practiced Hoxian. His jaw clenched, sinuses aching. He didn't smile, but there was a very equally warm recognition in his gaze.

Ezre looked back to Everus Verona, steadying his stance while his heart thrummed wildly against the inside of his tattooed chest. When the dead wished to share their truth, the Hexxos Guide had been taught to listen. The secrets shared by his people were ones no one beyond the isolated, windswept cliffs of Kzecka had heard in centuries.

Truth is a sacred thing.

"We the living are here to pass on the wisdom their own ears are not yet opened to hear." It was a very loose translation of proverbs he'd repeated since childhood since he was a small, red-cheeked troublemaker in the shadows of ancient temples.

The ghost didn't laugh, but it made a noise that sounded like a gurgle of interest. Incapable of amusement or any real emotion, it certainly affected their feelings instead of by the sheer perceptive power of its presence. The sadness that had swept over them in its arrival had only deepened, darkening into frustration and building with anxiousness like some sandstorm crowning on the horizon in some Mugrobi desert gauche-painted vignette.

"Your ears can never be open enough, children. Life will always get in the way—ooh, life—" What was left of the mysterious Everine's words dissolved into a moan, into sobs, and the supernatural form in front of them both seemed to grow shorter and yet also spread out more, wrapping around their little, magically-defined circle, smoky wisps of its decaying existence reaching higher, "—worthless and full of lies. So cold."

The specters of hands brushed invisible boundaries with a hiss, hunger, and sorrow desperate for the pair,

"I took this truth to my grave. Buried with this, it will become your epithet, too. Ten gods you pray to, but just like the spells you cast, your knowledge is incomplete. In ignorance, we sang to the Moon and praised Alioe's name. In ignorance, you think you know the whole of divinity." Ezre shifted the position of the candle he held, hot wax dribbling over his inked hands. He did his best to inhale slowly, breath hitching.

"We have all been wrong!"

The ghost didn't whisper those words, but squealed them, screamed them, shouted them. Growing in size and volume, the creature laughed and sobbed, darkness pressing against their ward with such strength that their inner ears ached, that the ringing grew into a tangible sensation against their eardrums.

The flame flickered, danced, waned.

It didn't go out, but the Hexxos Guide gasped. His upkeep and endurance were not wavering, but what was left of whoever Everus Venora might have been was simply that powerful a remnant. He weighed their dangers, unable to feel entirely sorry for the risks considering how easily Nkemi waded into them, as expected of someone raised near death like himself and serving the safety of her Kingdom diligently. She understood his duty, surely—

"That there are more than six Conversations of magic, this much I know. But that there are more than ten gods in the Circle? That I have only heard as a rumor. As heresy. Were you really buried with this knowledge?"

"Hold my hand and I will show you. I may still remember the way."

Ezre frowned, sifting through the near-mad, strung-together syllables of a creature that didn't remember its own name, had been locked below the common Catacombs beneath the Church of the Moon for at least half a century, if not closer to a hundred, and was surprisingly strong in its current existence stuck between life and death.

This was not the guidance the Hoxian had been asked for today, nor was it the tour he'd promised.

"Can you hold the ward, Subprefect Nkemi? We cast in chorus. It will be less with one mind instead of two. I can—I have—a calling. And a plan."

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 34 Dentis, 2719
The Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon

The rush of it took her breath away, like a powerful current pulling from below. Nkemi held fast against it; sadness and fear and frustration battered at her legs, but she knew to keep them bent, how to hold herself, to let the water rush around her without dragging her under. It battered at her, the deep dark water of underneath; no light reached down here through the heavy layers above, nothing to see by – not even the faintest greenish tinge.

The light around them – the ward – made an odd shape against the darkness; it was revealed not by what was, but by what was not. It weighed her down, pressed against her; Nkemi breathed it in, that sadness, deeper with each breath. Her head ached; her teeth too, pain gritting through her molars, sparking in the back of her jaw.

Nkemi’s fingers tingled, numb with the cold or perhaps with something else; she flexed them, and breathed, steadily.

The ghost screamed; she held still through it. The whole of divinity, the once-Everine had said; Nkemi listened, with all she had and all she was. She had made a pledge; she meant to keep it. The pressure in her head increased; Nkemi wondered, suddenly dizzy, if she would crack beneath it – spill open, come apart, like a clay pot jostled one time too many; the thinnest crack on the side, with the water pushing – pushing – pushing –

Nkemi took a deep, steadying breath; she set herself, and lifted her chin further. Her fingers dug into her palms; her gaze fixed on the strange hazy darkness which seethed all around them, writhing powerfully in desperation. That, Nkemi understood, what was she felt, most of all – desperation.

She jerked at Ezrah’s easy words, his quick nonchalance at the mention of more than six Conversations. The warmth of Nkemi’s static mona was wound all through their clairvoyant spell, adding to its light against the darkness. We at Thul’Amat, she might have said another time, in quiet studious conversation, I think, do not take the borders between conversations so solemnly as is done elsewhere – there are overlaps known and unknown – as I studied, for my tseruh, I found –

More than ten gods?

The Mugrobi’s face tightened, and she whispered to Hulali somewhere within her heart, a silent, wordless prayer. It was heretical; she could not like it. I pledged to listen, she told the God of Mercy and Kindness, of lifegiving water and the storms that swept the world clean; she knew He would understand. Hold my hand, the ghost said; I will show you. Nkemi breathed, steadily and easily; she swallowed against the pressure in her ears.

Can you hold the ward, Ezrah asked. Nkemi looked at him. A calling, he said, and a plan. Nkemi grinned; she took a deep breath; she nodded. “I will,” Nkemi promised; she reached out, and set her hand on the candle beside his, curling her fingers beneath the edges of it.

The Thul’Amat trained clairvoyantist relaxed into the ward; she poured a little more of herself into the upkeep, spreading her mind like water through the lines of the spell. She pictured herself in a cavern, deep beneath the earth, cool blue light filtering through; she found herself walking, down, a slippery stone path, into the heart of it.

The spell swirled all around her, like water, glowing blue in phosphor light; Nkemi walked into the heart of it in her mind, over a slick bridge, each footstep damp, leaving a glowing trail behind her. It flowed, faster and faster, and Nkemi built up the walls of the cavern; she placed the stones, here and there, as she remembered them from countless hours of meditation spent in Iz, the garden of water in the heart of Thul’Amat.

The currents shifted with each stone; they battered at them, and then, as water knows to do, they flowed around the obstacle, and let it shape them. The churning waters settled, and calmed – still powerful, but controlled – contained. Nkemi held her steady even breathing, and she held herself too; her eyes fluttered open, and she held the upkeep of the spell, and let it flow like water through her. The glimmering waters of the spell in her mind circled, lapped around, flowing steadily, and she herself sat at the heart of them.

Rolls

Upkeeping the spell: Sidekick
BOTToday at 10:43 AM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4

[Ezre Vks]

Brunnhold Campus

Late Afternoon on the 34th of Dentis, 2719

"Iknow the way back, but I do not know where you are interred." Ezre had waited in his composed, near-emotionless way, the mask of his rhakor a comfort when the innermost parts of himself churned like lava flowing from the cracks in Vita's surface with excitement and fear. It was with a slow reluctance that he glanced away from the ghost, from Everus Verona, toward Nkemi, trudging through fresh snowdrifts thick and heavy in his mind.

Her expression was unreadable to the Hoxian, more because she was barely more than a stranger, foreign and new, than because he didn't share any of her sentiment of surprise. If he did, none of it showed on his delicate features. The Hexxos Guide knew many things that could be said to be outside the scope of normal understanding, of acceptable academic knowledge, but he also knew that there was so much that either wasn't known or that had been lost—drowned in blood and turned to ash during the War of the Book, buried beneath the churning of civilization, whether on purpose or by accident in the struggle to make something new.

Hot and cold. Both in conflict, really, always flowing just like the Cycle itself, and here he was trying to squint through the steam and smoke, trying to make the right decision, trying to be what was necessary in the middle of it all.

He blinked and nodded when the Mugrobi subprefect accepted the burden he was handing to her in the moment, her willingness to move with the swift current of the situation telling of her relationship not only with the mona, but with the Circle. Inhaling slowly, Ezre held his breath for a heartbeat or two, tattooed fingers releasing his grip on the candle even as he untangled his mind, his magical self, his spread-thin consciousness from the ward they'd woven together. The tide of the spell washed outward just as slowly, deceptively slow, as he regathered his field and felt the sharp ache of his inner ears, one eyelid fluttering in the smallest expression of pain.

The dark-haired student knew the saying:

Hulali floats—

Delicately, Nkemi offered herself to wade into the depths, centering her concentration on their magical barrier from the writhing, entropic darkness that was the restless spirit right there next to them.

—and he drowns.

Ezre finally exhaled through his teeth and took a step outside the chalk lines they'd drawn together, immediately struck by the chilled force of sadness and despair, of confusion and frustration, that seemed to define Everus Verona's broken undead existence. He held up one tattooed hand, scars on his palm, inked lines disappearing into the pale green wool of his Brunnhold uniform sleeve,

"I will destroy you without question if you dare attempt to cross the boundary of this flesh."

It was utterly deadpan, completely threatening, and without any hint of merciful apology. They were not the words of a young student, but a statement of bravado-fueled duty, delivered with an honesty that might have been able to be labeled as respect had anyone who really knew Ezre had been there to hear it. It would not be the first time the Hexxos Guide had snuffed out what could only barely be called an existence of a ghost before, nor would it be the last.

"You will leave my companion untouched as well. If you want the truth to be shared outside this place of death, if you want what you know to reach the living and perhaps be finally heard, then you cannot have a place with us." He added, the statement a thick cloud of his own breath as he held out his hand, palm upward, toward the writhing darkness that whined and hissed now that he stood so close, now that the warmth of his living, breathing reality was there outside the magical boundary that had once kept him safe.

"But whyyyyy—I can tell them through you—"

"—no. You will tell no one when you cease to be." Ezre couldn't bring himself to even say exist because it was unclear whether that was even a proper label for a hungry ghost, "Will you respect this rule I am giving you?"

"I will." The once-Everine echoed Nkemi's words, almost in some mockery of her voice, dull semblance of a face turning to look at her almost too slowly, as if it was judging just how well she could carry the burden that had been passed to her, "And I will try."

Ezre made some consonant-filled sound against the back of his teeth, some mix of impatience and threat, waggling fingers in invitation while wisps of unliving darkness—so cold, much colder than even the Hoxian's general tolerance—caressed his uniform until it pooled over his hand in some similar shape. He did his best not to wince, remembering Bethas. He regathered his field and the ghost rippled, growling and shuddering,

"No need for that—come—hurry. You are very warm, but not as warm as the desert sands."

"Subprefect Nkchemi, your unauthorized tour continues." Brazenly, the ninth form student waved his free hand beyond the darkness, no longer able to waste time or energy on another light spell. With only the humble light of their single candle and a few phosphorous sconces mounted into the Crypt walls at various intervals, some of them faded with centuries of time, Ezre Vks led both the living and the dead back through the Clairvoyant remembrance section and through familiar passages, consciously resisting the tug of temptation and the frigid, empty void of hunger that flowed along side of him, that threatened to seep through his clothing and his tawny skin lined with dark ink. He'd been this cold before, once or twice, but it had been a long, long time. The weight of so many emotions was exhausting, however, chipping away at his well-honed rhakor.

"Tell us, honorable Everus, do you remember the names of all the gods of the Circle or just Alioe's? Perhaps speaking of them will keep you focused on the path at hand."

Theology. When in doubt—theology was always an interestingly distracting conversation topic, wasn't it?

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 34 Dentis, 2719
The Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon

Nkemi sat upon the surface of Iz, and beneath her the waters of the spell continued to flow. She held the glowing energy of the spell in her mind, contained; she offered to it a familiar form, one as familiar to her heart as her mind, which she could see, even now, on the insides of her eyelids if she closed them. Iz was there, within her; she could open her eyes and know, still, that it would be there if she closed them.

So, too, was the spell.

Nkemi took the candle along with the rest of the spell. She felt the weight of it sink upon her as Ezrah released his grip; it was like a rush of water into the caverns she had made. But the walls were strong, and the currents were clear, and though she felt it rushing up inside her, she did not overflow.

Nkemi breathed, steadily, and if her eyelids fluttered, if for a moment she let herself focus more deeply on the churning spellwaters beneath, the intensity faded – or, rather, became familiar, and Nkemi found the pressure had lifted. Her eyes opened once more, and she held the candle cupped in her two hands. A droplet of wax slid down the side, and cooled against the meat of her thumb; she did not flinch.

Nkemi watched as Ezrah stepped forward to Everus Verona, and listened as he spoke with the ghost. She did not relax the barrier; she held ready, for she did not know that Ezrah would not come back through, and perhaps suddenly, and that they would find it tested by more than gentle nudging. She held the spell as she might have held her baton, with a man watching her – ready but not tense, for tightness was a good way to be caught off-guard, and to be knocked off balance. She held readiness as a river did, powerful and rushing, but always able to flow around an obstacle in his way.

Nkemi met the once-Everine’s face when it looked to her. She too, she thought, would try. She had pledged herself to listen.

Nkemi watched as the cold darkness seethed over Ezre’s hand, and held still through the desire to siver; she lifted her gaze to the Hoxian, trying to understand what he felt. She remembered, a long time ago, the touch of a not-hand against hers, and warmth and light like the lanterns of Serkaih. She was not of darkness, she wanted to tell Ezrah; she was not like this. But the words were for another time; they were not needed, now, in the midst of this all.

They walked. Nkemi followed behind them, the candle cupped in her hands; its wavering, flickering light cast a half-shadow of Ezrah against the cold stone ground and stopped cold at the ghost, swallowed up by its inky darkness, absorbed and unreturned.

All the gods of the circle. Nkemi swallowed the strangest desire to giggle; she knew it for the spell, and she closed her eyes through the next careful steps, feeling with her heavy boots for uneven stones, so that she could walk without looking. She was the shifting of the water through Iz; she was the stones which held the water in place. She floated on top of both, and beneath them too, for they weighed down on all. She was all of this and none; she was more and less.

Once she was settled once more, Nkemi opened her eyes again. She wondered if Ezrah knew, too, this song of childhood; she wondered if the Everine did. She sang, softly, her voice lilting through the Mugrobi-accented Estuan, drawing out all the vowels.

“Alioe watches from high in the sky,
Minutes and seconds they pass by and by.”

Nkemi drew in breath, looking at the Everine; she went on, her soft, high voice filling the chambers and echoing.

“Vulker he drifts through trees all below,
and shivers in the branches that pass to and fro.
Imaan plays silent in the grasses beneath,
Young and old both can hear his bequeath.”

“Do you know it, honorable one?” Nkemi asked, softly, looking at the shifting darkness. “Do you remember the words?"

[Ezre Vks]

the forbidden crypts

Late Afternoon on the 34th of Dentis, 2719

As a child, Ezre had once fallen through ice on a frozen-over pond nestled in one of the many high rocky valleys around Kzecka. He'd been curious, aware that fish slept beneath the thick, solid layer and awaited the brief thaw that all of Hox experienced for barely a handful of months before freezing over again. The young thing had once wondered if they fish moved and what they looked like, but in his interest, he'd not considered it as important to check the stability of the ice as he'd been warned to so many times over by his family.

He'd been too far out in the middle of the pond on his hands and knees staring at the creatures suspended in time when he heard the crack.

The water had been so cold, even compared to the air, that it stole his breath and while the little body of water wasn't deep, climbing out was very difficult in all the layers he'd been wrapped in. The walk home had been so frigid, and the Hoxian remembered clearly the strange sensation of feeling as though he'd been burned. Especially because the touch of the ghost felt almost exactly the same—so cold it was hot, so numb that it ached, painful but strangely so.

The dark-haired student had felt all of this before. It wasn't as though he didn't know what to expect, but thus far, each experience had been unique. Everus Verona was confirming that there was no singular similarity between restless spirits, between hungry ghosts, other than the fact that they existed outside of the Cycle and—dru.

That was it as far as the Hexxos had observed.

It was all he could do to grit his teeth at the pain and concentrate on not stumbling over loose stones in the stale-aired halls of the crypts below the Church of the Moon. Everything about the creature next to him attempted to consume his attention, attempted to consume him, though the Hoxian's stalwart field and Nkemi's flowing, calm bearing of their ward kept him from being swallowed whole. His well-honed rhakor may have been his only barrier between the depths of sadness this ghost seemed to wear like the darkness it was formed from; the black waters of the feelings it projected seeped into every pore, pooled in every crack, just as frigid as its touch.

"All of the gods—" Everus Verona drew out the syllables as if aware of the subtext of the warm body's question, voice becoming a screech of a laugh-like sound, pressing closer, shadowy form wafting against the Mugrobi like the rising of a wave, "—I remember them—even if they have forgotten—me—"

Drifting into momentary silence as if its thoughts couldn't be completed, as if the restless spirit had reached some insurmountable barrier, the ghost dissolved into what could only be called soft crying instead of deigning to answer. The dark-haired student did his level best to hold himself aloof, but like a river stone worn smooth, his emotional endurance was doomed to wane the longer they walked.

Somewhere in the flickering glow of the candlelight, Subprefect Nkemi pezre Nkese thought to bring up a gentle reminder, a distraction, and a comfort in the form of song. Ezre recognized the tune, surprisingly enough, but he didn't recognize the Estuan words right away. It took him more than one stanza to realize the translation, to transcribe what he'd heard sung with slight differences in Deftung to temple children into the common language she used to bring life into cold, dead tunnels with the warmth of her voice.

"Vespe glides with grace through clouds between,
offering her light onto the path to be seen.

Bash consumes the past in heat
to lay the future a-new at our feet."

Estuan felt clumsy, but Ezre managed to sing along, resisting the urge to slip into his more familiar tongue. The ghost next to him—against him—around them both stirred, fluttered, hummed and whined. Everine were known for their song, singing in the Church of the Moon (in the temples scattered throughout the kingdom, also) a very important part of Anaxi religious culture. If there was anything those who claimed to follow the Circlist tenants had in common, it was, apparently, this.

Song.

"Roa gives the breath of being
From first sight til final unseeing.
Ophur chooses who is meant to receive,
But not all treasures are gold to achieve."

Two voices raised with the breath in their lungs rang out in the crypt halls, but the third filled it, poured into it without air, without boundaries, an eerie sound that felt like some illusion on the wind but was impossible not to hear.

Thankfully, Ezre knew the way toward the forbidden section of the crypts he'd explored with Lilanee all those months ago, and even if he stumbled and scraped a knee along the way, he kept going, not falling out of rhythm when passages gave way to a large antechamber. There were a few more stanzas to sing, and even as Everus Verona seemed to expand to fill the larger open area with its painted ceiling and carved floors, it continued singing, whether accompanied or not. The domed ceiling amplified the sound and at the far end of the circular chamber was a stair. On the ground near the first step was an old, melted candle now without a flame and a faded Monite ward drawn decades, if not centuries, ago onto the carefully masoned stone.

"Hurte stalks among the living,
Jealous in her graceful beauty—unforgiving.
Hulali floods every heart with mercy
Washing his blessings through all history.
Naulas waits with patient—

Naulas waits—

Naulas—"

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 34 Dentis, 2719
The Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon

The spirit shade writhed, dark, against the boundaries of the light, and did not raise a voice to join in the song.

Ezre did, joining in with the verse of Vespe; Nkemi’s mouth and tongue were dry, but she chimed in, singing of the goddess of wisdom and the god of stone, her lilting vowels and soft consonants sliding between the harsher tones of his accent, as when they had cast together. Where they remembered the words differently, they came together; the melody, they knew both, and they sang as one.

The ghost sang, too.

Roa, the Everine said; the tunnel filled with the echo of it, with the strength of it. Nkemi shivered; her eyelashes fluttered. She kept a hold of the spell and the song both, lending her voice to the eerie depths of the chorus; she stumbled, a rock skittering away from under her boot to clatter against the wall. Beneath the song, it was almost inaudible. The candle flame flickered, and bent, and Nkemi sang on, and held the spell; it wavered, and straightened out, slowly.

Wax had dripped down the sides; both of Nkemi’s hands were coated in it, held close to the candle, long thin, flexible strips wrapped around the edges of her fingers and stretching down the back of her palms. It glowed warm against her skin, though not warm enough to burn, but Nkemi could have traced the outlines of it without needing to look down.

Nkemi sang on; she stumbled again, dropping hard to her knees on the ground at the top of the stairs, just outside of the faded ward. The candle flame flickered, and she gasped in a breath, turning to the side; the ghost sang of Naulas, stuttering on his name.

“Naulas," Nkemi lifted her voice once more, climbing to her feet, and beginning the descent down, the ceiling open wide above. She felt the pressure of the spell all through her; her ears rang, and her own voice was high and tinny within them, like an echo of sound rather than the truth of it. She sang on, steadily, filling her lungs with deep breath as the candle flame glowed between her hands.

Naulas waits with patience all,
his gift the last which we receive.”

She drew out the last note of the song, as she had always done as a girl; tears prickled in her eyes. This song she had sang with her mother and her aunt; for a moment, she could nearly smell the rich tang of goat’s milk becoming yogurt in the pan, hear the hiss and rattle of kofi in the pan, feel the warmth of the stove and sun both; for a moment, she could have reached out and taken their hands, the both of them, Nkese with her high voice so like Nkemi’s own, Nkanzi with hers low and deep – like our father, Nkese always said –

Nkemi exhaled out once more, closing and opening her eyes. She was silent, though the echoes of the song rang in her ears; she was silent, the steady drip, drip, drip of some invisible seam of water filling the space now, doubling in and folding over itself. The candle flame in her hand wavered with a gust of wind which rattled through her, slicing like a knife through her coats and the layers beneath.

Nkemi’s breath misted the cold air; it pillowed and flowed against the invisible barrier which she held upright. The weight of it held heavy on her still; her hands shook, and Nkemi stilled them, and found the places where the spell flowed like a current. If it hurt, she let that hurt spread through her, wash through every inch of her body; she let herself bend beneath it, accepting, and she did not break.

Every heart with mercy, Nkemi whispered soundlessly, her lips moving. She breathed in, deeply, and lifted her gaze to the tangle of Ezre’s tattooed hand and the emptiness which was the ghost before them. Every heart, she thought, watching the creature.

"Where to, Fuchera Ezrah-shi?" Nkemi asked, finding the strength of her voice once more.

[Ezre Vks]

the forbidden crypts

Late Afternoon on the 34th of Dentis, 2719

Ezre paused when the candlelight behind him flickered, when the scuffling sound of stumbling in the dark filtered through the Guide's very focused senses. He'd let the slow, careful walk through the darkness be a purposeful, meditative motion for him, stepping out of himself and the burning cold of the ghost's touch much as he'd been taught to find paths leading away from pain during the long hours of ritual tattooing in Kzecka. Singing helped, bringing his heart back to familiar places, to tsvat nestled in volcanic rock, dusted in snow, fragrant with incense and cold in the too-thin air of his home. Nkemi couldn't entirely see her feet, either, their journey made by a single humble but hardly lonely flame, and there at the top of the stairs, as they'd sang through the Circle—

—dru, apparently, only the gods they knew—

She found her footing again.

"Naulas waits with treachery,
his gift not given to those deserv'd."

The once-Everine, now-restless spirit wailed its own rendition instead of the real last stanza. Everus Venora's uneven, entropic voice, though not without the well-trained melody of its former self, seemed almost weighed down by the burden of the end of the well-known song, its notes warped by confusion and suffering. It hadn't received Naulas' rest (nor would it ever as far as anyone knew), and the antler'd god's merciful patience had passed them over in this in-between sort of existence that was neither life or death.

There was quiet for a moment, the proximity of the ghost was very consuming for Ezre, hunger gnawing through tattooed skin as if chewing straight for the living marrow of his bones. He was aware, this time, perhaps more than those first few close encounters, of how those lines inked in such specific patterns over his whole body seemed to be more alive with heightened sensation in this closeness than he'd ever noticed before.

In Bethas, he'd been far too distracted, enthusiastic, and unfocused.

In Roalis, he'd been much too pressed to deal with unexpected dangers.

Now, in Dentis? With measured steps and stirring song, Ezre felt what he'd not before, and he admittedly had no idea what it was supposed to mean.

Nkemi's voice carried, drawn out and washed over the cold stones carved carefully beneath Brunnhold's Church of the Moon, stirring the still air with life and breath. He felt the cold—differently perhaps than the Mugrobi subprefect, but biting none the less—and his dark eyes darted to the ward on the floor. Looking back up toward the woman whose face was illuminated so warmly by flame, he made a face, clearing his throat as if to indicate it needed to be reawakened without wanting to say so out loud even as the dark shape next to him, against him, swirled and eddied and gathered itself in the heavy shadows that seemed to reach up for them from the stairs.

"Down." He replied simply, foot scraping at the spent pile of wax on the stone that had once been lit. As he turned, he shrugged off his satchel, carefully attempting to slide it free with his other hand to hold it between himself and his living companion, the waiver in his voice meant to be a hint to the ward, "There are more candles in my bag—"

"—dowwwnn into the dark beyond my rotten, stone-covered grave. Come and see the lies my corpse guards and you have forgotten."

Hissed the Everus' ghost, spreading itself larger again like some disturbed creature of the deep sea, a wave of sadness bringing the sting of tears even to the otherwise usually stoic Hoxian's eyes. He frowned,

"We need to see, honored one. Give us a moment." His hand ached and he remembered how he felt in the winter, clutching that pocket watch, covered in ectoplasmic residue and joints so sore. Ezre met the ghost's glowing eyes set in its shifting features, "Is your grave down one of the closed hallways below? Is there another passage?"

"Drip drip drip. The water flows—abandoned like me—moving, wearing, eroding. I will show you. Stay close."

The Hexxos Guide shivered and offered his free hand to Nkemi once new candles were lit in order to help them both down the stairs toward the gate Lilanee had opened all those months ago.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 34 Dentis, 2719
The Crypts beneath the Church of the Moon

Nkemi exhaled a long breath cloudy into the air, her hands cupping the candle. Gifts not given, wailed the spirit. The prefect watched the darkness writhe, heard the way the ghost’s voice filled the dark echoes of the space.

Nkemi could glimpse Ezre’s pale face at the edge of the candlelight; it gleamed on pale skin and dark tattoos both, the lines which ran along him caught and glittering at the edge of the spell. He made a face, his gaze flickering down, and Nkemi’s gaze lowered to the ward on the floor.

Her forehead tightened in a frown, and she nodded without nodding, the faintest incline of her chin before her gaze settled forward once more.

What was guilt and what was blame when the one responsible could not do else? What was justice for one who felt wronged in life and left to linger, when there was no hope of the scales being balanced? They had offered the hope of leaving something behind for the once-Everine.

There were no laws here; there was no magistrate. There was no one who could weigh the moment, the rights of one against another. Not for the first time Nkemi’s heart ached with the weight of longing; not for the first time she thought of dry desert air, of the smell of spices and kofi in the air, of bright airy fabrics. For a moment she thought she could feel the sun on her face; but it was only a moment, and only a candle’s flickering flame after all.

Nkemi thought instead of the bright faces in the classroom so far above, the laughing voices of students on Brunnhold’s grounds. They too were blameless, at least in this. She was here. She had herself, and the candle‘s flame; was it not enough? This too swirled within her, all of it surging and roiling like the spell waters within her mind. It circled round and round amidst the stones she had built, and did not crest their edge. Nkemi breathed it in and out once more, and held fast the spell on the rhythm of it.

All who die return to the cycle; a day ago, she would have said these words freely and easily, never knowing they might be a lie. No such would stain her honor; the wise man took care not to speak truths unknown, but to speak such words to a frightened man or woman and ease their last moments was no lie. And now, Nkemi thought, her brow tight once more; what comfort was left to offer the ghost before her? Only the lingering promise of memory; only the gift of leaving something behind.

Down, Ezrah said. Down, wailed the ghost, trailing sadness. Nkemi’s breath drew strange clouds in the air. Ezrah lowered his bag; Nkemi knelt beside it, limbs strange and heavy, muffled by more than just the cloaks. She took another candle out with a hand only just held even, and pressed the wick to the one slowly flickering.

The candle flame leapt straight up; Nkemi wavered, her breath shuddering. She set the first candle down in the ward, its small flame glowing as its wax melted down, drips left behind still on her fingers and the backs of her palms, holding in their warmth. She rose, slowly and unevenly, breathing smoothly and evenly once more. The candle flame held straight and strong; the light shone strong all around her, holding the lines against the dark.

Ezrah’s hand reached back. Nkemi took it in hers, his calluses scraping against the ones left on her palms and fingers by her baton. She came forward, and carried the light with her as she went, holding it against the dark, the three of them linked as one.

“Down,” Nkemi echoed, all firmness against the heavy black. Her voice rang clear and high, pushing the air from her chest even as it was swallowed up by the crypt’s stillness. “Where ever flows His water,” the Mugrobi promised, undaunted, “so too may be found Hulali’s mercy.”

[Ezre Vks]

the forbidden crypts

Late Afternoon on the 34th of Dentis, 2719

Since leaving the isolated but too-knowledgable community of Kzecka with its various religious orders, its tsvaten, its open-minded acceptance of the gods and other spirits, Ezre had more than once been accused of chasing after fairy tales, of clinging to antiquated beliefs that should have long ago wilted in the bright light of academia and progress and science. The mysteries of the world, a Brunnhold professor just a year ago had dared to tell the tattooed Hexxos acolyte, were all just waiting to be explained away by science. He wondered what, exactly, that same professor would have to say had she been the one holding the frigid, life-sucking spectral hand of long-dead Everus Verona here in the cold, cold dark beneath the Church of the Moon.

Nkemi had caught his hint, and the young Guide's shoulders sagged a little in relief, watching her as she took his bag and rummaged through its neatly kept contents to find his waxed bag of candles, not needing the little tin of matches with their flame flickering in her other hand. She traded them, smartly so, and his eyes lingered on the one she set in the ward while he returned his bag slowly, carefully, to his shoulder and felt the faint ripple of its weak but everspell-less activation, making sure to have moved himself and the ghost far enough from the radius toward the stairs so that the restless creature would still be unaware that it was now, once again, banned from passage.

So long as they didn't get lost below, so long as they weren't devoured by more ghosts waiting in the forbidden passages, then they surely had enough time to seek out the Everine's secrets and make an escape—Ezre was loath to think of destroying this strange being to get away, but perhaps it was ready for whatever rest the living could finally provide.

"Mercy is a lie told by the living to comfort themselves in their fear of death." Hissed the shadowy remnant of Everus Verona, pouring itself down the stairs, practically dragging the Hoxian student and in turn the Mugrobi prefect behind it. The young Guide tightened his grip when Nkemi's fingers found his, balancing himself between the living and the dead.

"Mercy is making sure no one suffers alone, even in death." Ezre riposted, quiet and firm, the harsh consonants and clipped vowels of his Deftung accent scraping against the stone on their short descent.

May all the Circle have mercy, the Hexxos thought, incomplete though it may be.

The stairs led into another hallway instead of directly into any sort of antechamber, though the gate of that hall was still open, the lock picked months ago by Lilanee Kuleda. The fact that it hung there, still unlocked and untouched from Clock's Eve meant that no one of importance had passed here since they had, that no one had roamed the halls looking for signs of wear or neglect. While this would have discouraged the ninth form divinipotent had he been able to linger on the thought, he was far too consumed by the hungry creature that pressed so close to him, that washed against him like a spinewolf's maw wide open, wanting to swallow the warmth of his life with its entropic existence.

Leading them through the gate, a room flickered into existence by the light of a single candle, deep shadows tracing out the carved details of the known pantheon on the floor, revealing several hallways that had been bricked up within the past century or two, forbidden passages. The ghost tugged them further, Ezre compelled to follow its flow through the center of the room toward passages that were still open,

"Listen. Liisteeennn."

It was difficult to concentrate, chill having crept through his fingers, up his arm, burning sensation almost making him believe the touch of a single ghost could freeze his blood right there in his veins. He closed his eyes, exhaling a whisper,

"Do you hear anything, Nkemi?"

The scamper of subterranean vermin. The steady, rapid fluttering of hearts. And, somewhere at the very edges of their hearing, the trickle of water.

Not a drip, but a trickle. A flow. So long untended, who knew what the state of disrepair the rest of these particular crypts had fallen into? Were some flooded? Had the disturbance ruined whatever it was this ghost even wanted them to find? Who knew.

He wanted to find out.

Ezre strained, delicate features stretched taut with the limits of his attention, resisting the temptation of yearning that swirled and washed around him in the shadows: the restless, unnamable need of an old ghost, alone too long.

The Everus moaned and murmured, drifting and yet cloying so close.

He moved toward one of the blocked archways, trailing the Mugrobi prefect with him, leaning until he could feel the cold radiate off the stone. Sounds sighed from deep within, and his dark eyes glanced toward the open stone arches, each carved with various scenes of Everine life—details he'd not had time to notice last time he was down here, so hurried had his exit been. The Hexxos Guide had been concerned for Lilanee's safety, perhaps caught off guard by the depths of her unbelief, by her lack of understanding, and while he should have been equally concerned with Nkemi's safety, she was not only another Clairvoyant as well as an officer of the law, but her acceptance of new truths and shared experiences had given the Hoxian a strange sense of comfort and confidence.

Perhaps he would feel guilty for such quick trust later, but he hoped not.

"That way, I think—"

"—all ways are the same. In the end. Full of lies. You will see."

"The Cycle is broken, most esteemed Everus, that much I know. Lies, however, I cannot entirely agree. Misconceptions. Things forgotten."

"Child!" The ghost wailed again as their strange trio began to move in the faintest of ruddy light, beneath an arch carved with a chorus of Everine and both Benea and Osa full, rays of light made of marble that wasn't even luminous. Just cold, pale stone, "My name as forgotten as Theirs. Dead."

He couldn't bring himself to tell the creature to be quiet, but it was difficult to think, let alone hear, stumbling in an unfamiliar passageway, following the faintest of sounds, chasing the faintest of trails.

Ezre slowed, perhaps to let Nkemi lead, perhaps to feel the comfort of her carefully held ward as if he'd forgotten it was there, body tired while he resisted the indescribable curiosity that tickled through the back of his mind, that gnawed at his resolve while his fingers began to forget what it was like to feel at all.

The hall was long, sloping downward. Other mausoleums had once been here, but every one of them was closed—sloppy masonry, quick and hurried. Name plates and long descriptions had been torn away, smashed, or scratched. Destroyed. Erased on purpose—even in the faint light of one flame, that much became painfully clear. Eventually, their footing became slippery. Moisture stung their nostrils, old and moldy. The trickle became louder, somewhere behind a wall or under their feet, but their tracking of it became barred by another hastily installed gate, locked and barred but rusted through.

Somewhere ahead, wet stones sparkled. A stairway led—

"Downnnn."