The Crystal Rose: Chapter 5
Six months. It took every ounce of self-control Vim had to resist bashing his gauze-buried lump of an arm against the bedside, bones already broken as they were. Half-a-year before he could even get the thing off. Closer to a year if he wanted to do any heavy lifting.
He didn't have a year. He didn't have six months—or even three. Assuming he got up that very instant, he had one week to spend searching every nook and cranny, to find a miracle cure that thousands, if not tens of thousands, had failed to find.
He had one week to save his daughter.
Sweat rolled down his face; his vision was hazy. Gritting his teeth, Vim let out a sound more gravel than human and tore the tent cover away. No one bothered to stop him as he draped on a coat and sauntered out of the sick tent, the rest of the injured too busy cheering him on with silent glances. The moment his foot touched the icy-blue flooring outside, however, Vim felt a chill take hold in his gut.
Sprawling walls of ice—far too dark to be natural—bordered the giant chamber, thousands upon thousands of cryptic lettering crawling across the bricks and pillars like ants. Each block of writing pulsed with an eerie violet, dark and ancient. It was sickening, almost like...
Almost like the mirror at Olsheim.
Vim tore his head away, turning to the orange-bright bonfires scattered throughout the hall, people reaching closer to the flames than they had any reason to be. It was a relief to know he wasn't the only one terrified by that otherworldly glow. He picked up a familiar face in the huddled groups and stepped towards it.
“Norlen,” he said, tapping the one-eared man on the shoulder with his free arm. The man all but leaped into the fire at his touch.
“Alderman?” The man blinked. “Gods, you look terrible.”
“I do.” Vim nodded. He was barely standing, “Where's Lannel and Sira?”
“They went out for a survey into the upper floors. They should be back any—“ There were the sounds of footsteps from the stairs. Norlen's eyes flickered, his lips curling into a smile. “Speak of the shadows.”
On the stairs were Lannel, Sira, and a man and a woman Vim didn't recognize. Noticing the two dozen hopeful stares fixed on them; Lannel looked down and shook his head. “Nothing.”
The entire hall let out a collective sigh and went back to their fires, trying very hard to act like the walls weren't glowing the color of death. Vim dragged himself up and limped across the expanse.
“Vim,” Sira said, shooting him a glare, “You should be in bed.”
“There's no time for that.” Vim all but growled. “It's been two days, Sira. Two days that you haven't found anything for.”
“We have found things. Lots of things,” Lannel said. His fist tightened. “They're just locked away. Hidden behind doors we have no way of opening.”
“Have you searched everywhere? All the floors?” Vim felt his voice grow desperate. He imagined a field of crystal-blue roses, kept right out of his reach by a locked door of all things.
“Everywhere.” Sira glanced at the floor. “Everywhere except...”
“Everywhere except the cellars,” Lannel finished. There was a grim edge to the words. He wasn't sure whether it was good thing or a bad thing.
Vim let out a breath. “Let me come with you.”
“Come with us?” The old woman's glare intensified. “You're injured, boy, you won't be of much help—“
“No,” Lannel cut in. “If we're going to the cellar, then I would say he's the only person we can bring for the job.”
Vim felt a chill go down his spine. There was only one reason Lannel would say that. “Is there a...room here, too?”
His friend gave him the smallest of nods. Vim looked up at the ceiling. Though he was too far away to see, the purple light streaming down told him that there were runes there as well.
Sira's eyes flickered between him and Lannel. “What in the world are you two going on about?”
“Olsheim,” they both said at once. Sira gave them a look.
“Well, if you are going to come, then at least wear some proper clothes.” Sira tossed him a sack.
The instant Vim stepped into the cellar, every hair on his body stood up like he had been hit by lightning. There was something inherently wrong about the dark purple light that coursed through the runes, even more than the floor above. The lettering poured into mid-sized holes in the wall, too small to go through, but big enough to make you wonder, and faded into the darkness. Just where were they heading?
He clutched his bandaged arm, doing his best to keep steady. Sira walked ahead of him with the rigid movements of a person who was trying to act natural. Somewhere from behind, a cold scrape of something against ice rung out. Vim wanted to say that it was Lannel carrying the rope he insisted on bringing to mark their way. That there wasn't anything deep, dark, and dreadful waiting to pounce on him.
He fixed his eyes on the walls, finding it better than the darkness in front.
After a moment of staring but not seeing anything, Vim frowned. There was something off about the runes. The...lettering, maybe, was different from the ones throughout the hall above, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly how. Vim narrowed his gaze. At first, all he saw were the same cryptic runes from above.
Then he realized that each blocky letter wasn't just a carving, it was a mosaic of a hundred other runes, crushed together like squirming worms to form a bigger whole. He pulled back, repulsed, and bumped into Sira.
“Sorry, I—“ Vim froze. A round slab, darker than any obsidian and deeper than any ivory stood in their path, as if someone had cut out a swath of night sky and pasted it there. The very color he hoped he would never have to see again.
But more importantly, it was hanging wide open.
“Lannel,” he said, throat hoarse, and not just from the burning in his arm. “Are you absolutely sure no one passed through here?”
His friend's fingers gripped the rope. “I'm certain. I even kept watch for most of the time. There's no way anything could have gotten past.”
“Is it possible that the old owners just...left it open?” Sira took a step closer, running a finger over the door. It rippled like jelly.
“No,” Vim said, “not for what's inside that room.”
Sira let out a subdued sigh. “Anything I should know before I go in there—seeing as you two know it so well and all?”
“Don't look,” Lannel said, and walked up to the slab, rope in hand. “I know you're going to look anyways, but I'm still going to warn you.” “Awfully nice of you to do that,” Sira smiled. Vim wondered if there were any words in the world that could stop Sira Dalson from doing something she set out to do. Probably not.
Lannel pushed the center of the slab with his palm. Vim watched in wonder as the man's arm sunk into the darkness and turned, as if holding onto a doorknob. The slab trembled for a moment and then disappeared. No movement, no steam, nothing. It was just gone. He felt a shiver run down his spine.
“That's certainly...something,” Sira said. She didn't ask how or why.
Lannel opened and closed his palm for a moment, then walked through where the door had used to be, passing into the chamber. Sira followed behind. Vim steeled his nerves as he stepped through.
At first, all he could make out was pillars upon pillars of purple light, shining through in the darkness. As his eyes began to adjust though, he managed to make out the shadows between the light, the forms in the dark. The chamber was massive, at least twice the size of the main hall above. In the center of the room stood five obelisks, each covered with millions of runes, every one glowing brighter than all of the runes in the hall combined.
Neither of those were the important parts though. Not when he was standing in front of the source of it all. Vim drew in a deep, painful breath. High above the room, standing atop the pillars, was a giant ring. Runes flowed out of the portal and down the obelisks in a tidal wave of maddening violet.
It was exactly the same as the one he saw all those years ago.
Lannel dragged the rope and walked through the ice, moving past the stairs as if he hadn't even noticed them. Vim knew better than to question him. His friend vanished into the shadows of the obelisks.
“Now, this is big and all, but I'm not too sure how terrifying it's supposed to be.” Sira gave Vim a slight shrug.
Vim contemplated not telling her. To simply keep quiet, and act like he didn't know anything. He was sure Sira would be able to tell though. The woman wasn't stupid. He raised a finger and pointed towards the flight of stairs. “There.”
Sira nodded and stepped towards them. Vim cleared his throat. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I've been sure since I came here,” the old woman said. The soles of her shoes clacked against the stairs of ice. He could still stop her. She was strong, but she was nearly twice his age . If he just ran, he could catch up to her in no time.
If he ran though, he would have to get closer to that purple light. Closer to the portal. Closer to...the things that lay inside.
Vim closed his eyes. There was no way. Not a second time. Never.
His foot snagged on something. Vim opened his eyes to see the length of rope stretching out across the room, trailing all the way from the main hall, where everyone else was. Why did Lannel insist so much on bringing it? There weren't even any doors, locked or open, in the cellar. Could he be trying to tie it around the obelisks? But—
Vim frowned. One of the runes on the obelisks was dark, a scratch cutting through the lines of the character. It somehow stopped the energy from pulsing through. Was it the work of the visitor before them?
He glanced back at the stairs. Sira was only a few steps from the top, her graying hair swaying with exertion. She turned around and met his eyes, grinning. Vim clutched the sling around his arm. The aged woman stepped onto the ring and vanished into the ethereal purple.
Out in that strange light, Vim wasn't sure how long he stood there. Seconds, minutes, hours—they all blended away. What he did know, however, was that after some length of time, Sira came back down the flight of stairs.
“Well,” the old woman said, reaching the bottom. “That was certainly something.”
He stared at her. “What?”
Sira cocked her head. “Is there anything else I should have seen?”
“You did see them, right? The things?” Vim looked at her in disbelief.
“Yes. They were big.”
“Big.” Vim let out a shaky laugh. “That's all you have to say about them? Each one of those things has the power of suns in their grasp. They could destroy our planet with a blink, and all you have to say is that they're big?”
“When you get to my age, old boy, you get a very real sense of how small you are in the gist of things,” Sira said. “This only reaffirmed that. A speck of dust and an even smaller speck of dust. What's the difference? It's just not surprising.” The old woman shook her head. “Maybe if I saw it twenty years earlier, I may have been scared, but now?”
Vim closed his eyes. Put that way, it seemed so simple. So trivial. It almost made all the nightmares over the years seem like children's scares.
“Why don't you go take another look? It's been years since you saw it last. Maybe your mind is making it out to be something more than it is?” Sira glanced from the portal to him. “Well, figuratively speaking, of course. I don't think we can comprehend things bigger than those are, but that's beside the point.”
Vim felt drawn to it. For a moment, he even thought he could do it.
But then the moment passed, and he was back to his old normal self again. He let out a sigh. “No, not in this lifetime.”
Sira smiled. “That is entirely up to you.”
There was a clacking of feet on ice. Vim watched as Lannel emerged from under the shadow of the pillars, rope gone from his grasp. He had no doubt tied it somewhere under there. His friend's eyes flickered from him to Sira, before nodding and brushing past. As the man made his way for the hall, Vim found his attention drawn to one thing.
Was it just him, or was that backpack smaller than before?