Descent

When Deme and the other party members awoke, Richard informed them that he had possibly found the City of Stone.

“I spotted obsidian steps at the end of a stream,” he told them. “They lead down somewhere.”

“Down somewhere? How do you know it’s the city?” Faye asked. “You saw it?”

“Well, it’s about a day’s walk from here,” he said. “I had to come back to tell all of you, didn’t I? It’s our best lead, don’t you think?”

“You walked all the way there?” she pressed. “A day’s walk while we slept?”

“I didn’t say I walked there,” Richard scoffed. “I scouted ahead. I ran there, and I didn’t walk down the steps, I said I spotted them.”

“I sensed something faint in that direction,” Lavenza chimed in. “Maybe Richard saw something, maybe he didn’t, but if we’re following protocol, that should be our next destination anyway.”

“Tamarin’s still sick,” Deme murmured.

“I’ll be fine child,” Tamarin coughed. “In fact, I’m thinking of having more of those mushrooms tonight. I think I’ve just about finishing building an immunity to them.”

“Let’s go,” Richard ordered. “I have a good feeling this time, everyone.”

Of course, Richard had not traveled to the obsidian steps at the bottom of the stream. He had chosen to trust Eifen’s instructions. The headmistress had no reason to lie about simple directions. If she had in fact fabricated the whole things, well, Richard would just cross that bridge when he got to it.

“Don’t expect me to thank you for covering for me just now,” Richard murmured. “Was any of what the headmistress said true?”

“Much of it is true, albeit misleading, yes,” Lavenza nodded. “But I suppose what you really want to know is whether a means to stop the petrification lies down there.”

“You suppose?” Richard scoffed. “It’s the only reason we’re even down here.”

“There isn’t,” Lavenza shrugged. “At least, not for you.”

“Then why did the headmistress—”

“Visit us?” Lavenza finished his question. “Because you desperately want to believe that there is a means to survive, Richard. It’s in your nature. She intends to use that against me.”

“So you do know of a way to save someone from the petrification?”

“Just someone, yes.”

“You’ve known of a way this whole time and said nothing?”

“You said it yourself. What good would it have done to tell you?” Lavenza asked. “The ritual she refers to involves one person. Just one, Richard, not a small village or a town or a great city. One person.”

“Even saving one person,” Richard muttered, “you had no right to withhold such a secret.”

“A month ago, you acted as if you didn’t even care whether the Demon King was even here.”

“That was before I realized it wasn’t so much of a fool’s errand.”

“One person. Remember that, and if you could choose one person in our company to save, Richard,” Lavenza repeated Eifen’s question. “Who would you choose?”

Lavenza was keen to notice that Richard glanced at Deme.

“That’s what I thought,” she whispered. “Are we done here?”

“We are not,” Richard growled. “Why can’t this power be used to save everyone, Lavenza? Headmistress Eifen said it herself. She said the power to save all of Aparthia and the power to save the child are the same.”

“They are,” Lavenza answered, “but it’s not the kind of salvation that you’re looking for.”

“Why not?”

“Because Headmistress Eifen loves her word games,” Lavenza replied. “When she means all of Aparthia, she does not mean, as you presume, the citizens, the people of Aparthia. She means me. I am all of Aparthia.”

“You? What does that even mean? What are you talking about?”

“Do you want to keep asking questions and receiving answers you don’t understand?” Lavenza sighed. “Or do you want to come see for yourself?”

They pressed on. Eifen had not lied about her directions. There was indeed a fork in the tunnel up ahead. The leftward path led to a downhill stream, which they followed for half a day until Deme spotted something that reflected light from their torches.

“Is that some kind of black glass?” she asked.

“It’s the obsidian staircase,” Richard murmured. “See, Faye? I told you.”

“Right,” the elf muttered.

Faye approached the staircase, which unfurled into yet another yawning chasm. The steps were carved from polished black stone. They drank Faye’s torchlight, revealing pale veins that threaded through obsidian like old bone. Each step spanned broad and deep, enough to allow a carriage to pass.

“We’re supposed to just head down there?” she asked.

“Scared of the dark, Faye?” Tamarin grinned. “Have you forgotten that you elves used to live down here with us?”

“There’s no us,” Faye scowled. “Neither of us have lived long enough to remember the ancient Abyss. And the city could be abandoned now for all we know.”

“If it’s abandoned, then there’s nothing for us to fear,” Richard replied, “and if the Demon King resides below, that’s who we are here for, agreed?”

“I’m increasing the potency of the torch lights,” Faye grumbled.

“Faye,” Lavenza started, “you know what that means—”

“I don’t care!” Faye pouted. “Let me do it or I’m staying here with the horse until you’re all back.”

After a few hours of recalibrating their torches, the party set off again. Faye found her compromise somewhat regrettable the moment they began. The Abyss below them swallowed their torchlights whole. The walls had grown brighter, true, and several more steps in the staircase were now illuminated by the intensity of their magical lights, but all Faye really saw was a seemingly endless descent.

They stopped several times, in fact, when either Deme or Horse needed some respite.

“How much longer does this go on?” Richard asked Lavenza.

“How am I supposed to know?” she replied.

“You admitted there’s something you need in the City of Stone,” he said. “Are you saying you need something from a place you don’t know how to reach?”

“I would have found it eventually.”

“Tell me what it is,” Richard said. “This thing you’re looking for.”

“Is it so important that you know what it is?” Lavenza sighed. “Can’t you just be satisfied to know that it’s only something of value to me?”

“Do you want me to trust you?” Richard asked. “Or are you just going to keep more secrets? Hope that because I’m fond of you, I’ll look the other way?”

“Richard, please, that’s not—” Lavenza pleaded.

“But it does seem like it, doesn’t it?” Richard growled. “Could the headmistress be right? I’ve given it some more thought. What lengths would you go to protect her child? What lengths would Seline have gone? Would you have both sacrificed us all? All of Aparthia, so that one child may live?”

“Would I be so bold as to lie to you that there is no power to resist the petrification, you mean?”

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

Lavenza struck him across the face. It was loud enough to stir an echo above.

“You are a fool, Richard,” she muttered coldly. “The only real truth in the headmistress’s words was that you do not deserve me. You have mistaken her insanity for truth you wished to hear.”

“You could just tell me—”

“Yes, I could tell you everything,” Lavenza cried, “but I will not, because the burden of truth is not for you. It is not yours to bear. I will die at the end of this life knowing that I have lived a life of lies. That shall be my punishment. My recompense is that I have never done anything to hurt those that I care about. That includes Deme, Faye, Tamarin, and you, Richard. Yes you, who spend your days thinking that you hold no candle to Her Royal Highness, when in fact you live in a separate light in my heart, but you drown yourself in her shadow anyway.”

“Hey! The fuck's going on?” Tamarin caught up to them. “Richard, what did you say to her?”

“He said didn’t say anything,” Lavenza brushed past her. “I lashed out. I’m sorry.”

“L-look!” Faye called from up ahead. “There’s…a light down there! I see light!”

The steps below made a wide turn. As they curved around the walls of the Abyss, a wan, spectral light, dyed in a ghastly cobalt, burned in a recess beneath the cliffs. It appeared as a bright sphere—both smooth and featureless—hanging suspended, trapped within deep stone cavities.

The light revealed the rest of the staircase. It descended another few miles until it reached a stretch of barren earth. There, a simple road cut through the rest of the gorge. At its end lay distant flat shapes: jagged spires, curved, ribbed silhouettes, rough-hewn bodies unearthed like ancient relics.

Everywhere, the forms of countless buildings lay indistinguishable from the skeletal body of the Abyss itself, as if the very bones of the earth had risen to give shape to the City of Stone.