XLIII

  The Black Temple

  The double door of the hall lengthened by an impossible amount as we neared. It reached all the way to the ceiling. Various depictions of animals—either locked in a valiant struggle or looming imposingly—adorned the surface. At the bottom was a square hollow the size of the idol.

  “Insert the key and you may enter,” the man-thing said.

  I scanned the edges of the complex, then the valley of pillars behind us.

  “You spoke of a gift,” I said. “What is the exact nature of this reward exactly?”

  The priest smiled but didn’t speak.

  Rin shrugged.

  Right. Nowhere else to go.

  The obsidian slip melted together with the door once I pushed it into the cavity. There was no creaking as the great entrance displaced air which had laid undisturbed for who knows how long. But from up high, a gong lauded our arrival. Light poured through the wider growing gap of the doors and chased away the dormant shadows within. Black walls climbed, their tops vanishing into the darkness clouding the ceiling, which the light couldn’t reach. Here, too, columns adorned the floor, though they were the size of a human. Encased at the top of these pillars in glass boxes were elixirs, vials, pills, weapons, animal skulls, and more items I couldn’t name at a glance.

  The not-man stepped to the side of the carpet going down the centre of the hall, and bowed. “Welcome to the Palace of One-Thousand Columns. As a reward for your efforts, please feel free to partake of the Fountain of Eternity.”

  I followed his outstretched arm to a small set of steps leading deeper into the hall. A chalice stood at the top, which was three quarters of my height and double my length in width. Its contents were an inky black.

  “Doesn’t appear that inviting to drink from,” Rin commented.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” he said.

  “Do you have a name?” I asked.

  “None. I merely exist as a guide to this temple. However, you may call me Akama, should it comfort you.”

  I nodded and approached one of the many pillars. This one contained an egg of some kind. Identifying it returned nothing, but an inscription written on a golden plague read: ‘Egg of Redemption. Restores ten years of youth.’

  ‘Ten years…that would turn me back into a child.’

  “Are all of these rewards for us to choose from?” I said.

  “You may each choose one reward inside this first tier of our holy temple.”

  “I assume that over there is the second tier?” Rin said.

  Beyond the chalice and the staircase was another set of pillars. These were less numerous than before, but there should be at least a hundred.

  “There are four tiers in total,” Akama said. “The layers after the first remain inaccessible to you. For now.”

  “So no window shopping?” Rin said.

  The priest frowned and tilted its head.

  “We can’t inspect what’s over there?” she tried again.

  “Ah, you’re allowed to explore the entire temple. I’d even recommend it. The Shadow Monarch’s glory is not one any should willingly pass up.”

  My head rotated to the side. Lesser animals populated the walls of the first tier, all displayed doing various activities. The depictions in the second and third layer showed more exotic animals. It was no surprise, then, that a single figure dominated the fourth. Shadows grew deeper as they skulked through the hall and converged on the central wall at the far back. Seated on its haunches, languidly gazing ahead, was a kind of…lion. Maybe. It had a mane but the creature also had a three-pronged tail and wings. What didn’t help that most of the thing was wreathed in darkness.

  Was that the beast which had chased us through the maze?

  Three columns beneath the mystery creature drew my gaze down. Light radiated from the columns, so much so that I couldn’t see through the flash and get a hint of what they contained.

  Rin and I shared a glance, then we sauntered forwards. Along the way, I sniffed of the fountain. Didn’t smell funny. Not that that meant much.

  I passed the same sort of egg on the way through the second tier as in the first, only this one offered 100 years of youth.

  What would taking that even turn me into? A fetus?

  Corpses that’d previously been nothing but a skull were now the entire skeleton, pills turned potent enough I could nearly smell them through their containers, and weapons hummed as if to celebrate our coming.

  Bodies turned to live specimen in the third tier. Through some mystical technique, the creature had been reduced to the size of a hand and placed in stasis. Yet their eyes followed us. The inscriptions said any creature removed from stasis would be unable to attack because of a binding placed on their soul, but I wasn’t so sure. The gazes of some penetrated my chest.

  ‘Their minds must’ve eroded.’ Must have.

  It’d been at least six centuries since the last opening of the Tomb; they could’ve been stuck here for longer.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The pillars at the end of the hall were so blinding I forgot to inspect the rest of the rewards of the third tier. Hurried steps carried me forwards as I shielded my sight against the radiance, the light only dimming after I stood in front of the pillars.

  A blue world stretched inside the container on the leftmost of the three columns. Rain thundered from the heavens, waves struck against a shore. Within the centre of that watery domain sat a lonely island of sand, and in the centre of it a humanoid figure in the lotus position.

  The creature was made wholly of water. Her hair was flowing, the angles of her face soft like that of a child. Her plaque read:

  Akua the Life-Dream.

  Souls pool in the deepest depths and collectively dream of the Overworld.

  Our gazes locked. The abyss inside those orbs was as deep as the ocean beneath her, yet the reflection of my face surfaced from within. I knew it then: This was no mere creature or spirit—Akua held an intelligence that rivalled my own, or even exceeded it.

  Though I didn’t want to look away, I turned to the second pillar. A vial of pure red floated in the middle of the container. Dozens of circular, metal devices spun around the vial, and arcs of energy flashed between them.

  Spectacle wise, this one was a lot less interesting than the first. I read the inscription.

  Dragon-blood of Zuschaal, Tempest of Heaven.

  Prideful and confident, Zuschaal fought his way into heaven. This vial was recovered during one of his many battles.

  A thrumming in my chest stilled. There was no pulse from the shard, the enchantments on the container so strong that not a whiff or hint of essence could make it through. But…I shivered. The Dragonflight were drakes. How far removed an offshoot were they of a dragon? Perhaps not even a bastard ten ancestors down the line. This vial of dragon blood could fit between my index and thumb, yet would contain more draconic essence than the entire Dragonflight combined, their elder included.

  What would feeding such a thing to Skul do? What would happen if I consumed it?

  With lumbering steps, I dragged myself towards the next pillar. Radiance made way for a kernel of darkness. Utter darkness. Darkness so deep that the light pouring from the column couldn’t penetrate and hovered around the black like a halo. But inside that sphere of impenetrable dark, a speck of light laid dormant. It was a creature. Tiny. Smaller than my phalanx. I could make out the shape of a turtle with a white shell.

  Ziel, the Black Guardian.

  A protector said to be an offspring of Karma. A guide for a dark soul.

  “Enamouring, is it not?”

  I was so enthralled the priest’s sudden appearance didn’t cause me to jump.

  “What does it mean with being a guide?” I asked.

  His smile was kind. “The realm of cultivators is dark. A product of the limitless ambition instilled within us all, and karma has her ways of latching onto the soul.”

  He paused to admire the great, shadowy depiction on the wall, then regarded me. After staring into the darkness surrounding Ziel, Akama’s black eyes seemed a light grey.

  “Ziel feeds off dark karma and frees the spirit,” he said.

  Only then did I notice that the blackness directly around the turtle was frayed. Ragged, like someone had taken a sharp blade and chipped away at it.

  ‘Black Guardian,’ my mind mouthed.

  The ‘black’ in his name didn’t refer to the shadows. He was a being of light that shielded the wicked.

  “What about her?” Rin said. She hadn’t moved to inspect the other columns and instead remained near the water spirit.

  The undercurrent in her voice thrummed.

  I turned back to Ziel. The enchantments on the container were just as strong as that of Zuschaal. Yet my insides churned. Ever since I received my first seed, I wondered at the placement of the trees. There was a sense of wrongness attached to simply planting them wherever. The cinderwing tree lied in the South. The Ashenbloods rested in the West. The Balekin resided in the East.

  And within the depths of the North, I’d find my fourth summon.

  The exact words of Rin’s conversation with the temple spirit didn’t register in my head. But Akama spoke freely of the rewards. And why wouldn’t he? Each syllable tightened the noose around our necks. Each word saw us sink deeper into the pit of greed.

  The Shadow Monarch loomed over the temple like a watchful deity, and the ringing of the gong was like an insidious hymn.

  “Say,” I said.

  Both Rin and the priest turned to me.

  “You never mentioned how we could progress through the tiers.”

  The not-man smiled. “Ah, it slipped my mind. My apologies.”

  His hands vanished into his robe and produced an obsidian slip similar to the key. His palm was open for me to inspect.

  [Seal of the Black Temple | Grade: Tier I]

  “This seal will serve as your key to the rest of the tiers,” he said. “Currently, the grade of the Seal is Tier I, which is why you can pick two of the Tier I rewards.”

  “How do we upgrade it?” Rin almost stumbled over her words.

  The air in the room vibrated with anticipation.

  “Absorb the tokens of others,” he smiled again. “Ten tokens for the second tier, twenty for the third, thirty for the fourth.”

  Rin frowned. Not the frown of one disgusted or confused at what they heard, but one having trouble with the logistics.

  She cast a longing glance at the water spirit. “That’s a lot.”

  “Any less,” Akama said, “and the rewards would’ve been free.”

  ‘Free, he says.’

  That was a total of sixty tokens. Given that there were six to ten people in each team, that accumulated to three hundred and sixty disciples at the minimum. Without a token, you couldn’t progress through the shrines or exit the Tomb, so stealing a party’s token was only a little shy of condemning them to death.

  ‘Same as you did to that Black Fang group.’ Same as they were ready to do to us.

  Rin and Akama got to talking, the girl trying to haggle herself to a lower number of tokens.

  I descended the stairs. Sixty teams, the number rang in my mind. Sticking to hunting solely the Dragonflight could work. But some teams would’ve perished within the first part of the Tomb. Others would’ve met their demise in this second stadium. Of the remainder, part would make their way into the next stage before I could reach them. That, and I’d need to circumvent Erri while doing so.

  ‘And that’s if they don’t walk around in teams.’ I wasn’t taking out an army.

  No. The tokens would have to come from other clans too.

  The Black Fang Cult? Gaje was supposedly after me, but that didn’t make their clan my enemy. That said, they were opportunistic hunters and that made them free game. Then there were the Fallen Immortals…

  I paused in the third tier of rewards and studied the white carpet. Why was I even considering it? The rewards made my soul thrum with want, but were they worth killing over? That many? All I wanted was to figure out where I came from. These rewards shouldn’t mean that much to me—

  Look up, something said, and my sight was drawn towards a modest column in the third tier. Chains wrapped around a stone carved from marble or another similar rock. Fiery veins ran along its length and pulsed intermittently. The stone rattled its chains and repeatedly shimmered as if it wanted to teleport but couldn’t.

  I was standing in front of the pillar before I knew it.

  Planestone, the plague read.

  Found in an abandoned temple. Its phasing is a property of the powerful spatial enchantments engraved into the stone. The destination is unknown.

  Softly, ghostly cries rose from behind me to accompany the poem flicking through my head.

  Deep in the Void,

  In Walls of Black,

  A World of Fire,

  Shelters A Beating Heart.

  “A strange but fascinating artefact.”

  Akama’s robes didn’t rustle or flutter. He simply appeared at my side as if he’d always been there.

  “The material itself isn’t special,” he said. “But that makes it more wondrous.”

  He waited for me to ask further. And what choice did I have?

  “How so?” I whispered.

  “Enchantments such as those should’ve broken the stone,” he said. “That they didn’t shows how masterful the engraving was. It is a powerful clan that would’ve ordered its construction.”

  “D-grade?”

  “I daresay higher, though I have no proof of it.”

  He didn’t speak afterwards nor did he need to. Light flickered on the surface of the container. A face stuck in a permanent wail reflected within the glass and hung over my shoulder.

  No matter how hard I wiped at the surface, the face didn’t vanish.