Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Interlude 6

Candle in Daylight

(Part 2)

Rida climbed further up the mountain, now replacing his staff with a steel knife by which he made his footholds. On the way, he saw a massive gaping hole that he did not notice before, as he climbed from another part of the mountain. It seemed that the torrent of wax from the hole was what created the nightmarish scene he saw below.

“What manner of power could do something like this?” Rida thought. But only briefly, as idle thoughts on such treacherous climb was not a good thing to have.

So, he soldiered on.

Carve. Foot. Hand. Carve. Foot. Hand.

He repeated this movements with expertise. One did not become one of the Fools by lacking strength.

The trek was less of a climb and more like him trying to not slip up.

He did not know how long he had been climbing, but when he arrived at the summit, the sun was already high on the sky. On the last spurt, he grabbed on and slowly crawled his way to a relatively flat surface and just lay there for a few minutes, heart pumping like crazy and lungs hurt from the cold air. Fortunately, the warmth of the sunlight gave a brief reprieve from the cold wind.

Once he felt recovered enough, he stood up and surveyed his surroundings.

To his surprise, the top of the mountain was rather flat.

And just a few meters from where he was, there was a house. Or half of it. The left side of the building was gone.

The style of the building was foreign to him. A simple building that should look like it was made of wood. But like everything else here, it was created out of wax.

It had a front porch and a rocking chair, which did not actually move as it was connected to the floor by a thin layer of wax. He ran his finger on the rocking chair and found out that it was so detailed he could feel the grain.

“Who made this? Who the hell could do something like this?”

The question came into his mind as he now found himself staring at what looked to be a window, but it was milky white so he could not see inside. Curious, he tapped it and felt that it was not as solid. This house was not a simple façade like the ones below. A hint of excitement made his lips slowly curved upwards.

Now Rida changed his attention toward the door and looked at the knob. He put his fingers around it and slowly turned it around.

Not to his surprise, it did not turn.

“If it doesn’t budge, then…I have to do this the hard way.”

The man took out his staff and prepared a spell as he did not know what would be waiting on the other side of the thin door.

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. He then groaned and kicked the door. It did not open on the first try, so he did it again. Four more times before it broke open. Or more like it crumbled open. He then used the bottom of his staff to widen the hole before entering the house with right leg first.

And what was waiting within made the inside of his stomach churn.

The inside was that of a normal house. Something that would not look amiss for a farmhouse. With tables and chairs and cups on the cupboard. There was even a rug on the floor, under what looked to be a sofa. All of them white, all of them wax, all of them glued to the surface they were on.

But that made Rida even more unnerved. Like he was seeing a parody of a life. A façade of normal human life.

The cold wind blew through the hole where a wall was supposed to be. He was reminded of the light he saw some nights before. It might have something to do with this…but if was capable of making such a deep hole, it should have been able to blow up the whole mountain. So why did it not? Did something stop it?

While he was thinking, he made casual glances at the room. And he saw something.

A hint of color different from all the whiteness that surrounded him. A piece of cloth stuck on the leg of a chair.

He carefully held it aloft. It was old and the color had faded, but it was the type of cloth that was used in burial shrouds.

“And this little drawing here. This is Old Dwarven,” he mumbled. One of his favorite subjects was Dwarven lore, that was why he dared to take the mission. But he did not expect to find something like this here. “Hmmm…this curve…I can just barely read it.”

He stopped.

“No…no…that’s not possible…” Rida almost dropped the cloth from shock. “That’s…did someone play a trick on me…?! Olnadyn’s Breath. This is way out of my paygrade.”

Paygrade. Rida laughed nervously, to stave away the feeling of being played with.

No. He was never paid. None of the Fools ever needed money. If they need it, it would be there for the taking. No one ever even asked if they could take more. It just did not work that way.

Stories. That’s what they live for. Stories and myths and legends.

Would it be better if he run now? Run as far as he could before whatever horror that made this mountain of insanity knew that he was there? To turn back from whatever awaits beyond that door?

Yes. Yes, it would.

Sadly, he is a Fool.

Rida walked through the door and saw a small hill. Barren and white like everything around him. At the top of the hill was a large totem.

A horrifying white object with antler-like structure growing out of either side of the top.

Statues of half-formed males and females of all Races surrounded its base, seemingly fused into the totem itself, hands frozen in acts of begging. They have no faces, but Rida could feel the desperation conveyed by the statues.

In the middle of it, the only colored thing on that white object was a desiccated corpse whose skin had gone dark green. Arms spread wide, fused into the base of the antlers while its lower torso fused to the trunk of the totem. The same figures of Races were on the thicker parts of the antler. All facing the corpse. All reaching for it with heartfelt pleas.

Its face had dried up so much he could not tell whether it was a male or female. On its neck was a small pendant. A rotted cloth hung on its ribs with a distinctive symbol on it.

Ugly. Disgusting. Abhorrent.

The thing before him could not be described by simple words. Without him noticing, he was already on his knees. And for some inexplicable reasons, he shed a tear. Whether it was out of fear or confusion, he did not know.

And he did not have the chance to think about it because moments later the mountain rumbled, knocking him off his feet.

The seemingly dead corpse suddenly let out a howl that curdled his blood. It turned its horrifying face towards Rida and words suddenly burst directly into his mind. Words spoken in Dwarven Tongue.

“Dr’ga…Ug’rur?” he repeated the words. “Warn…death…?”

“…Shigauteh…” it spoke again. This time barely a whisper.

Rida heard the voice echoed in his head. Suddenly a powerful barrier surrounded him.

A powerful magic burst forth from the corpse and blew him away, breaking through the house and over the edge of the summit.

At the same moment, the statues on the totem began moving. Arms flailing and reaching for the corpse. The white substance slowly encroached the corpse, now covering it up to its chest. The arms now came over its body and pushed it inside.

The corpse tried to struggle, but it had used its last power to give the human a chance. Now it could only give in as a pair of hands sprouted from the totem, covered its face and pulled it in.

And then, there was silence.

Deep, pervading silence.

The wind stopped. The rumbling stopped. It was as if Grea was holding its breath.

The clouds began to gather in great waves, at first white, then grey, and then great black ones that thundered across the sky, covering the sun.

A great magic circle spread from the totem, covering the whole mountain while up above lightning and thunder danced when finally, a great pillar of lightning stroke the totem. The force of which caused the structure to break apart. The antlers crumbled and fell. The right side first and then the left. The statues broke and fell in great chunks before melting into the ground.

All that was left then was a small mound of white wax the height of a man.

The wax dribbled down from that mound. In great blobs, until something resembling a man’s face and neck was formed. Two hollow eyesockets formed on that face. With dark blue stars shining from within, as if it could see through everything.

And on that moment, two creatures stirred on Grea.

One was on the land to the far north, where people of the Races and Demons spilled their blood and guts, staining the earth red.

AT the center of the continent was a massive volcano. And at the deepest part of the volcano, three pairs of eyes opened. Each like giant rubies, gazing through the truth of the world. Ancient and wise, and yet there was a calm rage in them. They spoke of great strength, and at the same time, loneliness.

A powerful snort from the creature caused the volcano to spout fire and blew smoke as black as ink, and all the Demons stopped their fighting and offered supplication to the direction of the volcano.

It then spoke, with deep and hollow voice, as if it was spoken through an ancient tunnel. “…Lavanu Shachem…Hed Ashtulgar …”

Another one was on a secluded land, ventured only by the foolish. Within a deep chasm that was the bane of all adventurers. Which, local legend said, contained the great secret of immortality.

And within the very depth of this chasm, something that was profane and blasphemous grinned. Two eyes gazed at the streak of blue from below. Two eyes like that of the sky on the bleak, gloomy days, that leach on everything beautiful and merry.

The creature had no shadow. And it hungered. It always hungered.

“Our Third Brother…” the thing spoke, with a cacophonous voice like that of many people of all ages and sexes speaking together. “Happy…Birthday.”

A laughter flared out from deep within its throat, causing a great earthquake that shook the continent for 3 brief seconds. Causing milk to go sour and birds to fall from the sky. And on that day, whole villages vanished, leaving only corpses with bite marks on them

The newborn creature took on the shape of a man. Or what a man looked like through the nightmares of a child. A disfigured, unpleasant form with wax dribbling off its face and skin.

As soon as it tried to take a step, it fell on the ground.

Its movements were raw. Unlearned. Like a newborn babe trying to walk, crawl and stand all at the same time. Jittery and abnormal.

It was sentient, but above all, it was confused. It could remember. Bits of memories. Bits of broken puzzles that needed fixing. Things that were it and not it. Experiences of what was it but not it.

It looked at its hands, seeing them for the first time and wiggled them a bit. Finding them rather hilarious.

It then looked towards the house, and it felt something familiar and warm in it. It dragged itself into the house, stumbling and jitterily walking.

Inside, it gazed at the hole in the house, and the newborn thing felt something inside itself. Something itchy and unpleasant. Something that burned and prickled.

It felt…hate.

It felt…ugly.

With jittery movement, it slowly dragged its right finger across the bottom of its face in a half circular motion, carving a crude smile that went from cheek to cheek on the surface of the face that looked like dribbling candle.

“Smile…when your heart…” it paused, as it savagely crammed its hand into its mouth and spat out bits of wax. And then said dreamily while the house, the mountain, and the statues all melted and became one with it.

“…is breaking…”