Declan Gregory,
PPC
Soren's shadow passed him by as Declan knelt over the snow-dusted body of his friend. He promptly brushed away the fresh powder only to wince upon first glimpse of the face beneath. Noah's frozen expression was eternally fixed with fright, a fright that turned Declan's stomach to knots.
Daruka remained uphill, watching over the scene like a guardian on high. But Declan would bet money the native would flee faster than any of them at the first sight or sound of trouble. Soren meanwhile was investigating the lake itself. Whatever there was to discover, Declan couldn't fathom. There was nothing there that wasn't already known to science. An army of skeletons a thousand years old for a lake bed. Everything of value had long been stripped away by grave robbers, or worse. Yet Noah was a reasonable and reliable man. The awe in his voice moments before his death was obvious. But looking upon that frozen face now, Declan appreciated how awe turned to horror.
The snow stuck to his skin like frost clinging to a window, but as Declan smoothed more away from the body, craters in the flesh became obvious. Something pelted the man, as though he'd been stoned to death. How Biblical. But for what sin?
Declan took photos of the crater-like impressions in Noah's skull. Pink frost rimmed their edges, and gentle palpation revealed the indention fractured the bone beneath. Poor man. Hail could be so damaging and the pellets of ice would certainly be obscured in this weather, but such powerful snow storms were rare in this climate. The kind of updrafts required to produce hail were more typical of a temperate climate where angry thunderheads were fueled by flatlands and tropical temperatures.
The transformation of their own serene weather was preceded by a wind pushing on the back of his neck. Declan's scarf whipped around his neck, and Declan looked over one shoulder just in time to witness Soren snap to attention at the sudden rising howl. His friend jumped to his feet and rushed from the lakeside, his face a terror of warning. A mad terror ripped the two men apart, and in the moment Declan's heart stopped, he shifted his gaze to the surface of the lake as ice broke on the rising waves. From the churning of white crests rose something dark: long limbs like spindles, knotted with fluid joints, tickling the sky and reaching for land.
The first projectile whipped from the water like a missle. A rock the size of a football, it thumped into the snow within arm's reach, spraying powder into Declan's face. More followed, raining behind Soren as he ran who grabbed Declan on the arm and ushered him to his feet.
Fear gave his legs warmth. The piercing howl broke his ear drums, and he covered the sides of his head with his hands, but he didn't look back. He didn't want to see the source of such fury, although images of monsters from the deep, hellish eyes, tentacles and teeth rotated in his mind.
Declan kept his eyes on Daruka like the man was a bastion of safety if he could be reache alive but whose shadow quickly disappeared from the hilltop. Half way to safety, pelted by rocks and boulders in their wake, Declan tripped, and grabbed at Soren's arm, nearly pulling him down in his haste. "Help!"
He cried.
The ground trembled. Ice threw up in chunks, wicked sharp as glass. Amidst the howling wind, Sören laughed and ran. Blocks of ice bounced off his shield. The effort took its toll, rattling around in his skull, the volcano heat in his chest threatening to rip him apart. Blood oozed from his palm around the crescents of his nails. His knuckles were white. But he was grinning, a mad cadaver behind the whip of his loosened scarf.
Terror blanched Declan's face. He grabbed the man roughly to propel him on, but shadowed him close in order to share the benefit of the runes. He could feel the defence weakening, but could not spare the time to renew it. Snow showered them, the cold like a thousand knife points, each footstep sinking, dragging them back downhill. The exhilaration of fear made safety seem a thousand miles away.
Then, Delcan stumbled and cried out. Sören's hand opened to brace the fall, and the power blinked out. The white blizzard suddenly choked him, lungs frozen. He hauled at Declan with both hands, one leaving a bloody smear. Dark eyes could not resist the glance back, at the creature rearing from the lake. He drank the view greedily, his grip on Declan relaxing. "Jag vet vi ska träffas igen*,"
he vowed it, shoving the man once more forward, then letting him go. He fisted his bloodied hand, drew a symbol in the air with the other.
A chunk of ice rebounded from the invisible shield. Sören's grin sharpened, and though his instinct urged him back towards the lake and its tantalizing secrets, he did not answer the call. The power of the runes raged in him; he felt like a god. Unconquerable.
Heaving air into his ragged lungs, he turned and ran, teeth grit together with the promise to return. They crested the hill, Sören only a few seconds behind. The weather had stilled, its silence an ache. He collapsed on hands and knees in the snow, then slowly sat up, breathing hard. Both hands lay flat on his thighs. He took a moment to readjust, but grinned when he did. Blood smudged his cheek, where he must have swiped at the ice frozen there. "So, Noah did find something."
---
* I know we'll meet again.
Declan Gregory,
PPC
His boots may as well been skis for how quickly Declan traversed the snow underfoot. Only after he scaled the mountainside and all but rolled down the subsequent embankment did he recognize the burning pain in his muscles. He panted for panicked air, cursing the thin atmosphere for the lack of breath, but managed to yell a defiant promise, "Screw Noah! I will never return to this cursed place!"
Yet the next day in the safety of the yurt base camp, his courage glowed beneath deep embers of fear. That previous defiance bristled with curiosity so profound, he sought out Soren to find out if his friend felt the same.
"Do you want to go back?" He asked quietly, careful not to let the natives hear the question. No amount of money was going to buy another guide, not now. But now, they didn't need one.
"Noah was on to something. I don't understand how he knew a discovery was there to be made, but he knew it."
As Declan spoke, it was as if he was trying to convince himself more than Soren. "Think of the fame and glory to be given my... I mean 'our' ... names? The greatest discovery of antiquity to be made since the Pyramids of Giza were plunged."
Anthropology, biology, religion. What lay beneath the lake may change it all.
He did not sleep, not even to travel to the distant planes. Silently through the small hours he replayed events, dissected them. Refit the picture. Repeat. The beast guarded something. Unseen to naked eyes. Only the runes had swept through the glamour. But had also called the guardian that protected it. That was the work of moments. The rest of the night he contemplated murder.
The morning Declan found him, he sat cross-legged as though in meditation. Red threads scored the whites of his eyes. Dark hollows hung beneath. There was a feverish edge to him, hands splayed, meeting finger-tip to finger-tip. Dry blood rimmed his nails. But there was a smile on his face. His cheeks ached with it.
His posture relaxed upon Declan's interruption, hands resting on his knees. Every muscle twinged an ignored ache. His shoulders burned stiff and immobile as a chunk of ice, and his fingers felt as though they might snap under a little pressure. But in answer to the question he laughed, unaccountably cheery, and perhaps a touch mad.
"You may keep the glory, friend. My gift to you."
Any uncertainty in Declan's ramblings was not reflected back. So far as Sören was concerned, there was not even a question. The lake belonged to them, written into their destinies as surely as the solidity of the stars. The glory he might gift, and willingly, but not the prize. That belonged to him. But it was a claim to stake another time.
"You're welcome to investigate the waters."
Confidant Declan would neither be able to call the guardian nor discern the treasure that awaited, though a theory was still a theory. "But we should give thought to slaying the beast. Did you bring a gun?"
Declan Gregory,
PPC
The sound of Soren's laughter pried the hairs from Declan's arm. A sound that echoed in the mind as one looked over their shoulder when they walked away. Soren's appearance was no less serene either. He was eager. Hungry.
Declan understood. "Yes. Kill the beast."
He said under his own breath, brow furrowed in thought. He'd been on hunts in Africa as a lad. Even in his home country, his family enjoyed duck and quail hunting. He could use a gun. But the small .22 in his possession was not going to be enough to slay such a fearsome creature.
"It would be easy enough to get rifles I think but we would have to travel back to the city and I'm anxious to be about this. I think it will haunt my dreams until it's dead. Perhaps the locals have something. I'll ask."
He ducked out of the yurt, seeking assistance. But rather than return with an able bodied man or even one of the aforementioned rifles, he returned with the village elder on his arm, an old man with a great stoop to his back so that his face was perpetually angled toward the ground.
"Soren. I want you to meet Gokul." Declan said as he assisted the aged man to the floor.
"He says he has something that can help us. Something to maim it."
Gokul, a weathered man of about seventy years, pursed his lips over rotted teeth and stared at Soren as though trying to determine if the younger man was worthy.
Talk of dreams caught Sören's curiosity. He had not slept to dream, and perhaps there was something beyond mundane fear to what Declan said. He had not encountered the creature in the other place. It did not mean it did not lurk there too. In any case, the question about the gun had been to ascertain that Declan had the means to in some way protect himself; shielding the man yesterday had been awkward enough. Sören didn't want the concern of his safety. Some small paranoid part slithered also beneath that almost kind thought. He wanted to be aware of any knives that might find themselves pointed towards his back, should things go awry.
After the man left, Sören stood. His bones cracked in a stretch, and he limped until the blood returned to his legs. Outside the cold whipped flesh from his cheeks, fractured like glass in his lungs. In this blessed wilderness, there was little of the mild mannered art dealer to him. He felt stripped to something clean and visceral. Upon clenching his fist the world magnified. The blood pounded in his head, a rage of power, celebration of the violence. He counted the runes he had spent the night memorising, though did not form them from the snapping, electric threads. Fire and blood. Somewhere far away, he imagined the beast shudder.
He considered going to the lake and taking what was his before Declan returned. He knew he would not die here. But in the end he tended to his needs. He ate and washed, then slept until Declan laboured his way back into camp. By the time they entered the yurt, he was sat more or less where Declan had left him. A mild gaze took in the stooped elder. The leather folds of his skin. The ancient knowledge in his eyes. Given his unstructured and inconsistent upbringing, Sören was surprisingly respectful of age. He sat like a king before a supplicant, but graciously bowed his head. The old man had made a long journey; the effort was recognised, and appreciated.
"Sit, elder Gokul. Declan will bring refreshment, and we will talk."
His lips stretched into a small smile for his friend. A shadow of amusement. Or maybe it was punishment for bringing an old man instead of rifles. Either way, the elder would be made comfortable, as was his due, and that being so the negotiations would begin. He at least waited for Declan to be sitting also.
"You have a means to maim the beast. Why have you never used it?"
If the locals knew of the beast, they knew of the treasure. There was a missing piece of the puzzle here. They had not offered aid to Noah - or so he assumed. There was an exchange to be made here. He would know the terms.
Declan Gregory
POC
Declan found himself serving Soren and Gokul in short order. Waiting on the elderly was only polite but only when he stood from offering his friend a warm drink did he frown and think twice of the situation.
As he poured his own tea, he remembered that Soren was demanding sometimes. He didn't imply arrogance. It simply was his nature.
Gokul spoke with a heavy, smoky accent in the way of someone who learned English later in life. "Because man-young. We not can use it. It old ways. Old metal. From shrine of god of the Lake."
He reached under his shirt and pulled out a long, metal chain that to Declan appeared to be crafted from bronze alloys. But dangling from the chain was the Saṃsāra, an Indian symbol of reincarnation that Declan knew better as the Endless Knot.
"Ancient souls use it. The Ancient soul who wakes guardian of lake."
Declan was used to speaking with obscure tribes foreign with English. He knew what Gokul meant. He turned to Soren to elaborate. "Only someone that rouses the beast can use the symbol. Many tourists have been to the lake over the years yet none disturbed the beast until Noah and us."
But just because he explained didn't mean he understood how an amulet was going to help them against a very real monster.
Sören was rapt. That edge of fever returned to limn his gaze. Shrine. God of the lake. He could feel the thrum of his own pulse beneath his skin, and when Gokul pulled out the trinket it was all he could do to prevent himself snatching it from the air. The hair on his arms prickled. Boundless energy coursed through his limbs. The fingers of one hand twitched, betraying the restless urge to clench his fist. Instead he waited patiently for an explanation.
He recognised the symbol as Buddhist. Iconography cyclic in nature came up again and again in his studies, associated with gifted ones. The nature of the world. He cast nets, assimilated the knowledge, drew quick conclusions. It was a shame his wallet had no signal out here, though perhaps the network would have failed him anyway. Their silence during the journey here now suggested, not that they had no information to give, but that they were unwilling to share. He keened on a sense of danger, but filed the thought away. He was too embroiled by now to consider the consequences rationally, so there was no point considering them at all.
Declan's translation was laced with doubt. Sören did not turn to address it. In fact he did not turn to Declan at all. "May I see, elder Gokul?"
He held his hand out, palm up, to accept the token. There was no demand to his tone, but he was, nonetheless, expectant. When the old man proffered the amulet, Sören curled his fingers possessively over the edges. His other hand, still resting on his knee, bunched into a fist. Naudhiz, the same rune that had quested into the lake, now touched delicate tendrils into the amulet. For a moment he thought he sensed a vibration, an echo of understanding, but then nothing. "A mystery, then."
His gaze flicked up to Gokul. "You don't know exactly what it does, I suppose."
He was not a man to take any but a calculated risk. Sören was not reckless. But he did believe in the deep and ancient roots of the world, and as such was more inclined to believe that Gokul might offer trickery, to get both men killed at the lake and thus leave this place in peace, than he was inclined to think the piece of wood and metal in his hand held no power. Sören could deal with tricksters. And he was far from powerless, if the amulet did prove to be worthless.
"Does this aid come with a price?"
"A price?" Gokul asked ad though contemplating the word's translation. His heavily lidded eyes fell to Declan, and skewered him with their veiled consideration. When he turned his attention back to Soren, the old mans voice shifted, hesitant. "You not have to pay price. Or maybe you do but don't think so. To use amulet is free, but costs everything."
A cryptic answer Declan anticipated. What he did not expect was the chills shuddering his body beneath heavy coats.
He swallowed the rising fear and reminded himself of the goal. Of discovery and glory.
It was worth it.
Sören's lips lifted in a predatory grin. He heard one word: everything, and knew it was a price he was willing to pay.
"Very well. You have our thanks."
He strung the amulet over his head, where it settled against his chest. Nothing happened, even when he experimentally clenched his fist and raged with power. He glanced at Declan and grinned, a little less mad in aspect, a little more boyishly victorious. It never even occurred to him to offer the prize to his friend.
--*--
The lake was as they left it. A white shroud of snow covered both their earlier footprints and the terror of their flight. Sören paused by the furthest chunk of flung ice, glaring into the distance. Feet planted in the snow, both fists clenched tight, he shouted into the wind. The runes cast it into the ice, hurled the sound out like an echo. "Jag är här!*"
It should have roused the beast. If his theories held water. But nothing happened.
He glanced quizzically at Declan.
It didn't seem a terribly good idea to go down closer to the water; they'd barely escaped with their lives the last time, and Sören meant to hoard every available advantage in order to assure victory. Returning to the lake's edge was the risk he would take only when all other options were exhausted, and aside from the distance, the only other difference between now and then was... the amulet itself.
Frowning, Sören clawed it from the confines of his winter gear. His scarf flapped free. The cold bit knives into his exposed skin. Something to maim the creature, Gokul had said, but what did that even really mean? The old man could barely speak English. Sören dragged the cord over his head, and held the talisman out to Declan. "Be ready to pass it back,"
he instructed. "Then stay back out of the way."
This time uruz centred the vortex of threads, red and visceral. The heat of it slicked his skin, even as the winds began to howl their mournful warning. Sören's fingers flickered urgently for the amulet, his other hand braced in a tightly clenched fist. The waters ahead began to break and rise as something immense bowed its surface. Crystals of ice joined the flurry; it was hard to see, squinting, eyes burning as though bloody.