The silence after the Blood Pits was not a relief. It was a vacuum, and into that vacuum rushed the sound of their own failing bodies—the rasp of Cahara's pained breath, the shudder in D'arce's limbs, the low, hungry groan of his stomach. The torch was a stub now, its light a feeble, drowning pool around them in the narrow guard-tunnel. It painted the rough-hewn walls in frantic, dying strokes.
They did not speak. Words were too solid, too definite for the formless dread that filled the space between them. Cahara focused on the immediate calculus: his leg was a forge of pain, the acid burn a weeping, angry sun beneath his torn trousers. His waterskin was empty. He had one strip of hardened cheese left in his pack. The torch would last minutes, not hours.
D'arce sat with her back against the opposite wall, knees drawn to her chest. She stared at her hands, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time. The hands that had wielded a sword for a lie. The wrists that had been bound for a sacrifice. The trembling in them was fine, constant, a vibration from a shattered core.
Cahara broke the silence with action, not speech. He unslung his pack, the movement sending fresh jolts of agony up his leg. He laid out his remaining possessions on the dusty floor between them: the empty waterskin, the cheese, the tinderbox, the coil of rope, the merchant's scale. A pathetic inventory. He then drew the small clay pot of salve Nosramus had provided.
D'arce's eyes flicked to the items, then to his face. "What are you doing?"
"Auditing," he grunted. He dipped two fingers into the salve, the smell of grave-moss and honey sharp in the close air. He pushed aside the torn fabric of his trouser leg, exposing the burn. The flesh was blistered, an ugly map of red and purple, seeping clear fluid. He smeared the salve onto it with a clinical detachment that belied the sweat beading on his forehead.
She watched, her knightly discipline reasserting itself in observation. "You need clean water to flush that. Before infection sets in."
"I know what I need," he said, his voice tighter than he intended. The salve brought a wave of cool numbness, a blessed counterfeit of relief. He tore a strip from the cleaner inner lining of his cloak and bound the wound with brisk, efficient motions. "What do you have?"
She seemed to consider refusing, then reached to her own belt. A small pouch. From it, she produced a single, dented metal flask. She shook it. A faint slosh. "Holy water. From the chapel at Rondon." A faint, ironic smile touched her broken lips. "Not so holy now, perhaps." She also had a small, sharp dagger, and tucked into her boot, a folded square of parchment—a map, crudely drawn, showing the upper prisons and the words 'Cell Block C' circled.
"No food?" he asked.
"Faith was my sustenance," she said, the irony gone, leaving only ashes.
Cahara picked up the scale. He placed the flask of holy water on one brass plate. On the other, he placed his strip of cheese. The scale tipped slightly towards the water. He grunted. "A trade. The water for the cheese. Your faith for my hunger."
She stared at the scale, an instrument of a worldview so alien to her own it might as well have been a demon's artifact. "You would measure everything."
"Everything has a measure," he said, not looking at her. "Even salvation. Especially salvation. The man in the red robes gave me the price of yours."
Her face hardened. "Do not speak of him."
"He said Le'garde sent you there." Cahara pressed, his mercenary's heart needing to settle this account, to know what kind of fool he'd indebted himself for.
"He is a liar serving a corrupt god!" she snapped, her voice echoing down the tunnel. The sound seemed to frighten her. She continued in a harsh whisper. "Le'garde… he is visionary. He sees a new world, free of the old gods' cruelties. Such a vision requires… difficult alliances. Sacrifices he does not make lightly." She was reciting a catechism, but the words were brittle, cracking under the weight of the hooks and the cup of Lethe.
"Your sacrifice," Cahara stated.
"If necessary!" The fire flared and died. She looked away. "But not like that. Never like that. He would not give me to them. He must have been deceived. Captured. They are using my devotion against him." It was the last bastion of her belief, and she clung to it with the desperation of a drowning woman.
Cahara said nothing. He had seen the cultist's certainty. It had the feel of a settled business deal. But arguing was a waste of energy. He nudged the scale. "The trade?"
She looked at the cheese, then at her own trembling hands. The body's need was a more honest master than a broken heart. She nodded curtly.
He passed her the cheese. She took the flask, uncorked it, and handed it to him. He poured a small amount over his fresh bandage, hissing at the sting. The water was cool, with a faint, metallic tang. Not holy, but clean. He took a small sip, letting it wash the dust from his mouth, then handed it back. She took a single, measured swallow, then recorked it as if it were the last draught in the world.
The transaction was complete. A new, fragile alliance forged in the currency of basic need.
The torch spat, its flame guttering down to a blue, wavering ghost. Darkness gathered like a tide.
"We need light," D'arce said, the fear of the First Fear returning to her eyes.
Cahara looked down the tunnel. "The guard posts. They might have stood torches. Or something drier than air to burn." He hauled himself to his feet using the wall, his leg screaming in protest. "Can you walk?"
She stood, her movement steadier than his, the knight's physical training asserting itself over emotional wreckage. "I can walk. I can fight."
"Save the fighting," he muttered, taking the dying torch. "It's too expensive."
They moved down the tunnel, a slow, pained procession. The darkness ahead was absolute. The tunnel began to show signs of age and abandonment—fallen scree, rusted iron brackets where torches once sat, long since stolen or crumbled to dust. The air grew colder again, and drier, carrying the smell of old iron and forgotten dust.
After an eternity of limping progress, the tunnel opened into a small, square chamber. A guard post. A stone bench was carved into one wall. A rusted weapon rack, empty, stood opposite. And in the center of the room, a wooden table, rotted and sagging. On it lay a few scattered, poignant remnants: a corroded tin cup, a brittle leather dice cup spilling bone dice, and a small, leather-bound journal.
But Cahara's eyes went past the table to the room's far corner.
There was a skeleton.
It was not hung on a hook. It was seated against the wall, fully articulated, still clad in the rusted remnants of chainmail over a tabard so faded its emblem was indistinguishable. A notched longsword lay across its lap, as if placed there in a final act of respect. This was not a victim of the dungeon's horrors. This was a man who had sat down, and simply never risen.
D'arce approached the skeleton slowly, a reverence in her step. She knelt before it, ignoring the dust. "A guardian," she whispered.
"A dead one," Cahara said, but without malice. He went to the table, picking up the journal. The binding fell apart in his hands, but the pages, though brittle, held. He angled the dying torchlight to read.
The script was a simple, soldier's hand.
"Day 47 of the Silence. The screams from the lower pits have stopped. The Chaplain says it is a blessing, that the offerings have achieved unity with the god. All I hear is silence where there used to be life. We are told the New Lord, the one they call Le'garde, has made a covenant with the masters of the pit. That our watch is no longer needed. That a new age is coming. They are discharging us in shifts. My company is to leave on the morrow. There is talk of a 'merger.' The Chaplain smiles when he says it. I do not like his smile."
"Day 48. The discharge is a lie. Barric came back. The one who left yesterday. He came back up the tunnel. But it wasn't Barric. Not anymore. He was… smiling. Like the Chaplain. He walked right past us, down towards the Chapel of the Hooks. He wouldn't answer when hailed. His eyes were empty cups. We are not being released. We are being processed."
The entry ended there.
Cahara lowered the pages. He looked at the skeleton in the corner. The guardian who had chosen to sit and wait for a discharge that would never come, rather than become a smiling thing walking towards the hooks.
D'arce had risen. She was staring at him, having read the words over his shoulder. Her face was pale as the parchment.
"Le'garde," she breathed. "A covenant. With the masters of the pit."
"The New Lord," Cahara quoted, his voice flat. "He's not a prisoner here, D'arce. He's a shareholder."
The last of the torch flame clung to the end of the stick, a desperate, blue fingernail of light. In its final flicker, they saw the skeleton in the corner seem to shift its skull, ever so slightly, to look towards the tunnel leading deeper down.
As the light died, plunging them into a blackness so complete it felt like being buried alive, a new sound reached them from that downward tunnel.
The soft, syncopated rhythm of several pairs of bare feet, shuffling in unison.
And a faint, collective, breathless humming.
Darkness was not an absence. It was a substance. It poured into Cahara's eyes, his mouth, his lungs, a heavy, silent oil that erased the world and left only the frantic geography of his own pulse. He heard D'arce's sharp intake of breath beside him, the rustle of her clothes as she shrank back. The shuffling footsteps grew clearer in the void, a soft, terrible rhythm. Shuffle-shuffle-drag. Shuffle-shuffle-drag. And the hum—a low, contented, tuneless vibration that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves.
No torch. No light. The First Fear had won.
Cahara's hand found the damp wall, its cold roughness the only anchor in the drowning black. He pressed his back against it, sword held out before him, a futile gesture in a space he could not see. "Stay still," he breathed, the words swallowed by the dark.
The footsteps were close now, just beyond the chamber's entrance. The hum resolved into a chorus of individual voices, each slightly off-key, blending into that eerie, unified drone. It was a sound of perfect, mindless peace. It was the most frightening sound he had ever heard.
A shape blotted out the slightly less-black rectangle of the tunnel mouth. Then another. Silhouettes against nothing. They passed the entrance, not entering, not pausing. He could make out the outlines of men, their movements loose, their heads lolling gently with each step. They moved in a single file, a procession of the damned taking a leisurely stroll to their own damnation.
One of them stopped.
Cahara's grip on his sword turned his knuckles to stone. He stopped breathing.
The figure stood in the entrance, a cut-out of deeper black. It slowly turned its head. Cahara could feel the gaze, empty and yet somehow hungry, sweep over the chamber. It lingered on the skeleton in the corner, on the rotten table, on the space where he and D'arce stood frozen.
The hum from this one wavered, dipped. A wet, clicking sound came from its throat, like a tongue trying to remember a word.
Then, a whisper. Dry as fallen leaves. "Joining… us?"
It wasn't a threat. It was an invitation. Gentle. Sincere.
D'arce made a small, choked sound.
The figure's head tilted. The click came again. "Pain… is… optional. The hymn… is eternal." It took a single, shuffling step into the room.
Cahara acted. Not with sight, but with memory of the room's layout. He lunged forward, not with the sword's point, but swinging the flat of the blade in a wide, low arc where he guessed the thing's knees might be.
The connection was solid, a dull thwack against bone and tendon. The figure let out a sigh, not of pain, but of mild surprise, and crumpled to the floor. The humming stopped. The shuffling procession in the hallway paused.
In the sudden silence, a new sense erupted. A faint, phosphorescent glow, sickly and green-blue, began to emanate from the fungus on the walls they had passed earlier. It was weak, but in the absolute dark, it was a galaxy. It illuminated the room in a ghastly, underwater relief.
The figure on the floor was revealed. It wore the tattered remains of a guard's uniform. Its face was placid, smooth, its eyes wide open and milky white. A serene smile stretched its lips, a smile that reached its empty eyes. It looked up at Cahara, not with anger, but with a patient, forgiving curiosity. It began to push itself up.
Behind it, in the hallway, four other smiling faces turned in unison towards the chamber.
"The tunnel," Cahara hissed, grabbing D'arce's arm. "Back the way we came!"
They stumbled out of the guard post, past the standing figures who reached for them with slow, dreamlike gestures. Their touches were not grabs, but gentle pats, as if trying to soothe or welcome. Cahara batted the hands away, his skin crawling. D'arce flinched from every contact as if it were acid.
They broke into a limping run down the dark guard-tunnel, the faint fungal glow their only guide. The shuffling, the humming, resumed behind them, no faster, no slower. A peaceful, relentless pursuit.
"They're not running," D'arce gasped, her voice tight with horror.
"They don't need to," Cahara grunted. His leg was a column of fire. "They know we have nowhere to go."
The tunnel branched ahead. One path curved upward, back toward the higher prisons. The other dipped sharply down, into a region where the fungal glow was thicker, clotted with strange, bulbous growths.
The shuffling was a soft, persistent drumbeat at their backs.
"Up," D'arce urged. "Away from the pits."
Cahara looked at the downward path. The air from it was colder, carrying a faint, mineral scent. Not decay. Not incense. Something else. "No," he said, the decision forming from a place deeper than logic. "They expect that. They herded us this way. Down."
"That's madness!"
"It's the only move they haven't anticipated!" He pulled her towards the descending fork. "They are empty. They operate on pattern. Break the pattern."
They plunged downward. The tunnel became a steep, natural fissure, the walls closing in until they had to turn sideways. The fungal glow here was different—a silvery, reflective sheen on a strange, lichen that looked like frozen mercury. The temperature dropped sharply. The sound of the smiling ones faded, then vanished, as if the fissure were a throat they were unwilling to enter.
After a desperate, squeezing climb downward, the fissure opened into a low, wide cavern. The silver lichen covered everything, casting a cold, moon-like radiance. In the center of the cavern lay a still, black pool, its surface like polished obsidian. And around its edges, half-submerged in the lichen, were shapes.
Bodies.
Not skeletons. Not fresh victims. These were preserved, leathery, desiccated. They lay in postures of rest, not torment. Their eyes were closed. Their faces were not smiling, but bore expressions of profound, weary relief. They wore ancient armor, styles unseen for centuries.
At the far end of the pool, a simple stone arch led into further darkness.
D'arce approached the nearest body, her revulsion tempered by a knight's reverence for the fallen. "Who are they? They look… at peace."
"They look dead," Cahara said, but even he felt the strange tranquility of the place. It was a tomb, but not a hungry one. It was a terminus. He knelt by the pool. The water was clear, incredibly so. He could see the silver-lit bottom, impossibly deep. No algae. No life. He cupped his hands, risking a sip.
It was the purest, coldest water he had ever tasted. It washed the dust and fear from his throat like a blessing. He filled his empty waterskin, hands trembling, then drank deeply again.
D'arce followed suit, the simple, physical act of slaking their thirst a moment of profound, wordless communion. For a minute, there was no dungeon, no pursuit, no broken faith. Only two animals at a quiet waterhole.
As they drank, Cahara's eyes adjusted to the silver light. He saw writing carved into the stone rim of the pool. He moved closer, tracing the letters with a finger. It was an old tongue, but one with roots in the common language. He could piece it together.
"Here lies the Legion of the Final Watch, who turned their backs on both Sun and Moon. They sought neither the glory of the New, nor the madness of the Old. They found the Stillness. The water remembers no god. The stone dreams no dream. This is the mercy of the Void. Let no hymn follow them here."
The Mercy of the Void. A refusal to participate. A choice to become inert, neutral matter in the war between gods and horrors. It was not victory. It was a cessation. The ultimate withdrawal from the economy of suffering.
D'arce read it over his shoulder. "They gave up," she whispered.
"They balanced their account," Cahara corrected, his merchant's soul understanding this perfectly. "They paid the final price: their own presence. They left the market."
He looked at the peaceful, desiccated faces. For a fleeting, terrifying second, it seemed like the most desirable end imaginable. To simply… stop. To let the cold water and the silent stone have you. To be a fossil, not a fuel.
A sound from the fissure behind them—a distant, gentle shuffle.
The market was calling. Their debt was not yet paid.
Cahara stood, the cold water a weight in his gut. He looked at the archway leading onward. "We can't stay. This peace isn't for the living. It's for those who have finished."
D'arce nodded, her face grim. The respite was over. The glimpse of stillness only made the return to the engine more cruel.
They moved toward the arch. As they passed the last of the legionnaires, Cahara saw something clutched in the corpse's leathery hand. A small, smooth river stone. On it, a single word was scratched: ENOUGH.
He left it there. The word was not his to take.
They passed under the arch, leaving the silver-lit tomb behind. The new tunnel was dark, but the air felt different. Older. Heavy with a different kind of silence—the silence before a storm, or a sentence.
The shuffling did not follow them into the tomb. The smiling ones, it seemed, had no interest in the Stillness. Their hymn required listeners.
Cahara and D'arce walked on, the memory of the cold, pure water a phantom in their mouths, the image of the peaceful dead a haunting counterpoint to the living hunger at their backs. They had escaped one horror by fleeing into a monument to surrender. The question now was not what they were running towards, but what they had left behind in themselves that was still worth running for.