Chapter 43: Chapter Twenty Six – The Torn Shroud

The next floor we reached seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage from whatever weapon had ripped the stone apart. It had once been a living quarters, most likely for the mages or whoever had lived here, but the north wall opposite the stairs had been blown inward. The resulting destruction had sent stones and flame through the whole room, burning most things inside to a cinder and crushing under the rocks most of what didn’t get burnt. The three of us peered over the edge of the stone railing and surveyed the room with a cautious eye.

Zelaeryn strode about the room warily, her hand held on the pommel of the sword at her back. Sascha and Alarice seemed to be following Carrisyn suspiciously, careful to keep their distance as the former countess herself traced the outline of the beds lining the walls, burnt down to the frames and now little more than charred husks.

“What the hell is wrong with her?” I thought, eyes narrowing as they followed her. Even in the best of circumstances she was suspicious to say the least. Now? She was nearly manic, and it set every one of my nerves on edge. Maybe I should let Sayuri bite her after all, I thought with a scowl.

“Ohhh!” Sayuri exhaled excitedly. She bounded up the few stairs remaining and threw open a chest, the lid crumbling into charcoal as she threw it open. “Pretty baby baby!” Sayuri lifted something out of the chest and brushed the black dust off with one hand. I glanced at Lysabel who shrugged. The two of us made our way over to Sayuri to see what she’d found.

“Whatcha got?” I asked. Sayuri held a tattered, lovingly but inexpertly sewn purple and brown rag doll up for our inspection. “A…doll?”

“She’s beautiful,” Sayuri whispered in awe. I regarded the thing curiously. Beautiful was a word. Not one I’d use, of course. Ratty? Hot mess, maybe? The over-sized button eyes were mismatched both in color and size, giving it a sort of shocked and confused gaze. One of the arms was longer than the other while both legs were over-filled and looked like small purple sausages. “Can I keep her?”

“How’d you even know she was there?” I asked, giving Sayuri the benefit of the doubt as to the doll’s gender. Had it been forced to choose a pronoun on Twitter, I imagine it would choose something like Huh?/What?

“I smelled her,” Sayuri pointed one finger at her nose while keeping her eyes firmly on the doll. “Can I?”

“Well, I don’t think anyone’s going to complain,” I glanced around at the devastation.

“I get to keep her!” Sayuri crowed joyfully and ran over to Lysabel to show her. “This is my new baby baby! Her name is Choosy Baloosy, but you can call her Choo for short!”

“How delightful!” Lysabel enthused. “She’s lovely.” Sayuri swelled with pride and strutted about, holding Choo proudly in her hands.

“At least she’s happy,” I shrugged.

“She forgets she’s afraid quickly, doesn’t she?” Lysabel asked, coming to stand next to me.

“Evidently,” I agreed.

“I wonder if that sort of thing can be taught?” Lysabel muttered.

“Elenoraya won’t surrender, she still believes the queen is alive! You know that Llewel. It’s the only way!” A voice, quiet and faint, sounding like it was in the back of a cave said, frustration seeping through the words.

“What?” I asked Lysabel.

“Huh? I didn’t say anything,” Lysabel returned.

“We’re all going to die here for nothing!” A different voice replied in desperation. Lysabel and I looked at each in concern. It was at that moment I began to notice a sense of the world shimmering on the edges of my vision. Nothing longer than the blink of an eye here or there, but something strange was definitely happening.

“We have to protect Choo,” Sayuri mumbled, grabbing onto my arm, and looking around frantically.

“Y-Yeah,” I nodded, fear doing a bit more than nibbling at me. I didn’t like creepy things. Things that went bump in the night, ghost stories that seemed just plausible enough to be real. Those goddamn found footage horror movies, especially. We needed to get out of here. “Definitely have to protect Choo.”

“There’s no time to lose!” Carrisyn finally exclaimed, turning away from the twisted wreckage of what had once been an ornate bed complete with an elaborate canopy, now nothing more than ash and charred wood. “The Revenant’s Moon rises before the sun sets today and we have to be ready.”

“What the hell is a Revenant’s Moon?” I asked Lysabel nervously.

“I-I have no idea. I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Lysabel admitted in confusion. Carrisyn hurried toward the staircase leading up further into the tower, not waiting for anyone to follow her.

“There’s- “Sascha began before I interrupted her in exasperation.

“I swear to fuck if you tell me one more time that there’s something off here, I will let Sayuri bite you all. Tell me what the hell is going on,” I hissed angrily.

“I don’t know anything for sure, yet” Sascha shook her head. “I’d rather not say until I’m sure.” I scowled in exasperation and looked over at Alarice for her take on things.

“Don’t look at me, I just shoot things,” Alarice lifted her bow for emphasis.

“Goddammit,” I muttered, sagging in defeat as Sascha and Alarice followed Carrisyn toward the stairs. I sighed and followed behind dutifully, Lysabel and Sayuri once more clinging to my arms, Zelaeryn bringing up the rear.

The next level of the tower appeared to be some sort of research lab with most of the wooden tables heavily damaged from the fire spreading up from the floor below when the tower fell. Some of the towering bookshelves had tumbled to the ground, the books heaped in mostly charred piles. Carrisyn paid no attention and continued up the next stone staircase. Once more Carrisyn ignored the devastated room filled with faint magical symbols etched onto the dusty, sooty floor and shelves filled with dull, lifeless stones ringing the walls.

As we ascended the tower the shimmering on the edges of my vision grew more and more pronounced, like graphical glitches in some of the Otome games Eun Ha had made me play on my ancient laptop I generally only used for porn. Rather than the air growing cleaner the further from the initial source of the flames which had raged through the tower the atmosphere was becoming more and more oppressive. Outside the shattered windows the sun was rapidly sinking into the forest to the west. Through one of the windows I was able to look through as we chased after the now sprinting Carrisyn I noticed that the moon was, indeed, beginning to rise in the east across from the westering sun.

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Finally, nearly breathless from chasing after Carrisyn up the expanse of the Tower of the Moon we emerged from the staircase into the topmost room. The space was well-apportioned and had, plainly, once been the private chambers of someone very important. The entire room was ringed with windows, some with glass still unshattered in the frames affording a 360-degree view of the cliff the tower and city around it occupied and the forests beyond. A giant bed stood along the north wall, the tattered silk curtains hanging limply in the growing darkness. Several ornate dressers and wardrobes and, the centerpiece of the entire room, a creepy stone sarcophagus sitting on a polished marble dais in the center.

“There will be no quarter!” A voice called from down the stairs, frenzied yet distant, like a dream. “Elenoraya has fallen, we have to escape or we’re next!”

“Everyone’s hearing this, right?” I glanced around at the others who stood in a small knot near me, looking at Carrisyn who stood in front of the sarcophagus, her back to us.

“You’ve torn the shroud, haven’t you?” Sascha finally said, her voice low and accusatory. I glanced around as if expecting some sort of encyclopedia to magically appear and helpfully explain whatever she was talking about in bright yellow highlighter. “That’s the spell you were casting outside the door, wasn’t it?”

“What’s she talking about?” I whispered to Lysabel. The princess glanced over at me and shrugged, shaking her head wordlessly.

“Of course, even with your prodigious magic you’re not capable of casting something that powerful,” Sascha continued.

“What’s going on?” I whispered to Alarice. The archer scowled and me and shook her head irritably.

“Then again, you’re not really even Carrisyn anymore, are you?” Sascha said.

“Seriously, what the hell is happening right now?” I demanded slightly louder.

“The Revenant’s Moon is rising,” Carrisyn whispered, her voice soft but clear in the silent room. Though many of the frames lacked glass exposing the room to the winds which should be buffeting the tower, the air was quiet and still. Unnaturally so. “The time is nearly at hand.”

“The time for what?” I snarled in frustration. Suddenly, as if the world around me had been nothing more than a shabby painting covering a window into a world behind, it was torn away.

Dozens of robed and hooded elves ran to and fro frantically. One green-robed elf ran right through me as if I wasn’t there, causing me to step back in surprise. The ruined tower was gone, replaced with opulent furnishings. The dilapidated bed was like new, the silk curtains blowing gently in the breeze wafting through the windows. The smells of recent rain mingled with the smell of smoke reached my nose as I stood in shock, staring around me. One elf, taller than the others, her robes a shimmering green, hood pulled back to reveal her deep auburn hair and beautiful, determined face stood in the center of the room surrounded by five other mages.

“This is a mistake, Elenoraya!” One of the mages insisted angrily. “What does dying here for a lost cause prove except that Rhade can take what they want when they want? It’s better to live to fight another day.”

“I have to agree with Kharis, your eminence,” another elf chimed in. “By dying here we accomplish nothing.”

“The Queen will come, Llewel,” the auburn-haired elf insisted stubbornly. “We don’t need to win; we simply need to survive long enough to keep the gaze of Rhade firmly on us so the Queen and her Council can come to lift the siege.”

“The Queen will not be coming!” Kharis snarled. “She would have been here before now if she were. There’s been no contact with Silverbough since Faelar Naexirym arrived at the fortress. The portal is closed and the Queen refuses to open it. We have to assume the armies of the Queen are committed to taking Snowkeep and Starfall as Faelar’s been advocating for months. We’ve been abandoned!”

“She would not abandon us!” Elenoraya insisted angrily. “What you’re saying is treason! I will not hear more of this stupidity as long as I am archmage of this tower, do you understand me? The queen will come!” As I watched in awed silence Kharis stepped toward the figure of Carrisyn, seeming to disappear inside her. “We will stand, and we will fight! I have led us through these many years and have never once been defeated! I will not be defeated now!” Llewel first, then the other assembled mages slowly stepped toward Carrisyn, vanishing inside her. Silver fire had begun to lick at Carrisyn’s form, with each mage’s disappearance the flame grew wilder and fiercer until Carrisyn was the center of a blazing maelstrom. “The queen will come!”

Just as suddenly as the tower of old had appeared it vanished, leaving Carrisyn as the center of a silvery nova of flame which blazed without heat or sound. The moon had ridden higher into the evening sky, combining with the silvery fire to bath the room in blinding light so bright it forced me to shade my eyes.

“The Queen never came,” a voice that was Carrisyn’s and not at the same time said. “We turned on her here. We drained her power and when Elenoraya’s body fell to the invaders her soul was trapped within this tomb. We sought to flee the horror, but the way was sealed. We begged for forgiveness, but the Rhade would offer no quarter. When the tower fell, we fell with it. Here we battle each night. Reliving our failures, our treachery, our cowardice, powerless until now to rest.”

“Tell me you’re all seeing this, too,” I muttered. “I didn’t get ahold of some bad chicken or something and am having a fever dream brought on by salmonella, right?”

“It’s happening,” Lysabel nodded.

“Oh. Oh, well, fuck me,” I nodded in disappointment. Definitely was kind of hoping for the salmonella thing, I thought miserably.

“How do you propose to set yourselves free?” Sascha demanded.

“We will show Elenoraya the queen has come at last, and she will be forced to lift the curse,” Carrisyn stepped forward, her eyes blazing with silvery light.

“Ah, that would be me,” I said. I figured I could do a royal proclamation or something. Introduce myself, shake hands with this Elenoraya person then do a low rent Moses ‘Set my people free!’ kind of thing, then we can get whatever we need, and I can go home.

“Yes,” Carrisyn nodded. “Your heart will unlock our shackles.”

“We’re talking metaphorically, right?” I looked at Sascha for validation.

“I’m thinking no,” she replied with a shake of her head.

“But of course,” I sighed.

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