In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound

55 - Davnian - Out of the Pot

As Davnian opened one of his eyes, he felt his body being sapped of strength by cold water on every side. The world was pitch black. To make things worse, he sensed he was surrounded by solid stone with water covering his weakened frame. Fetid water danced across his exposed eyeball while the moisture clawed at his wounds and injuries like a knife twisting within. As his brain cleared, his lungs heaved as they evacuated the murky substance from his breast.

Struggling with coughs and spasms, he forced his way upwards. With his demon claw, he gouged out pieces of rock as he scratched for the surface. With his human hand, he cupped the liquid around him. His broken legs kicked and flailed as he tried with all his might, the mire all around him flowing past as he struggled.

Breaking the water's surface, Davnian's lungs collapsed upon themselves as a spout of water erupted from his mouth. His heartbeat, which had seemed all but silent, started with a roar as its tiny thrums became massive beats, his pulse pounding in his head and every limb. Below his legs twitched and snapped as something deep inside wound through him, righting the splintered bones and torn ligaments. He screamed in anguish, his voice reflecting off the sealed top of the small, watery space.

[Where . . . where are . . .]

[I think we're in the well,] the other said, springing to life in the back of his head.

[Then we're still down here.] He remembered how the Nerin-thing had shambled out of the sepulcher within the mirrored chamber.

Without a second thought, he dug his claw into the side of the stone masonry, his muscles tightening as strands of something more substantial wove between them. With a heavy pull, he drew himself upwards, his stitched-together legs spreading to prop him up above the water. Images of the dying girl flashed through his brain. Like a hoe through topsoil, his jagged fingers raked the stonework, and he propelled himself farther up the well.

"Rais!" Davnian screamed as air and grit hissed through his clenched teeth.

His whole being was driven by instinct and ire, his empty head unable to grasp one moment before another passed. With another clawing leap, he lurched again and again. He felt the gesture of a child's laugh motion across his lips, followed by a stare from the grim mirror of his internal reflection. The black eyes of his insidious soul burned through his psyche as he dug his nails between limestone blocks. His cracking legs stretched up and down the tunnel, finding footholds with bony, unseen toes. In another gasp of vengeance, he tore his way farther upwards. One leap and then another, each time the taste of blood and bile flowing fresh across his tongue.

Slamming into whatever covered his prison, every muscle and bone in his body bent in tandem. The massive weight of the well-cap groaned as his arms and legs trembled. His bones rattled and shattered beneath his skin, every snap replaced by a writhing corpuscle of unseen strength as he roared down the watery tunnel. In his mind, he could not recognize his actions for his own sake. He was unattached and removed from the menacing creature that struggled to free itself. Finally, the massive thing gave way. Clawing between an opening in the top of the well, the heavy, wet, crimson cloth around him ripped and tore as he dragged his body through.

The putrid air of the watery grave was replaced by the grimy dew of the deep hollows of the ancient ruin far beneath the trunk of the Hyunisti great tree. The dark confines of the domed mirror room were illuminated by the tiniest embers of the drying magma from the monster's previous attacks, combined with a flicker hither and thither from the cracked silver lantern at the edge of the room. With his single open eye, Davnian scanned everything nearby before fixing on the glistening edge of a thin silver blade. Lumbering toward the shadowy corner of the room, he fell to his knees beside the blade.

[I don't know what's wrong with me.]

Davnian's thoughts were lost as he leaned over the metal, his single open eye straining against the gloomy hall. He caught just how disheveled the room had become in his hours of absence. The Nerin-thing had torn down much of the ancient structure over what was supposed to be Davnian's final resting place. As he snarled and panted between his swollen lips, he reached behind his head, scraping along the smooth, mottled flesh at the back of his skull. As his ego remerged with the essence of his being, his arms and shoulders began to tremble.

[You had a brush with being as close to death as you ever have been, young one,] the other said, lingering at the edge of his thoughts. [The feeling of dying, of losing everything, is a powerful thing. No doubt every cell of your being is fighting it.]

[But, I'm alive,] Davnian replied as he stared at his reflection in the dim light of the broken domed room.

Darkness and shadow clung to his every feature, his hair matted with blood and damp with foul water as it clung to his pale, beaten features. Black, rusty goo streamed from his ears, clots of the sick stuff clinging to his hair and the back his neck. Watching his swollen nose twitch as he inhaled, he smelled blood and gore wafting off his broken frame. With a shaking hand, he pulled the scab-like crust from the right side of his head, freeing his hair while exposing a slick patch of mottled grey flesh beneath the mop.

Looking away from his reflection, he scanned his left arm. Stretching itself over the length of his forearm, the flesh of the claw had grown. Farther up, large black veins coursed with unknown contents, winding through his bruised bicep and into the rest of his body. Looking down, he saw his broken legs supported by masses of grey-and-black clumps injected between torn muscles and shattered bones. With every second, the mass cinched itself tighter, his sinew and skin stretching back over the destroyed limbs.

[It looks like your first guess may have been correct.] The other was almost mocking as its gravel laden voice whispered to his reeling brain. [It seems like you just needed to be thrown off a ledge.]

[No, that's not why.] Davnian was regaining his sense of self as he picked up the broken lantern and intact blade. Where anguish dwelled within him, the ghost of the dead girl whom he had drawn within danced. As the familiar words of another danced from her shrouded visage, playing across his mouth, the innate understanding of two raw emotions overcame him: terror and wrath. [Elis and Neris are in grave danger. The whole village is. And that thing has been left to frolic freely in a dead man's corpse.]

Davnian pressed the dead girl's thoughts to the back of his head, her playful laugh erupting from his heaving breast. The whole world was madness, and he was the ward at its center, dreaming it all. If he wasn't insane before, he surely was now.

[We need to hurry if we're going to stop whatever that thing has planned,] the other cautioned as the wafting shadow of its immensity strolled across Davnian's mindscape. He paid what heed he could while his legs stiffened and softened at the same time. He walked toward the sealed stone doors of the ruined chamber. [We can stop it and get everyone away.]

[And if they can't be saved?] Davnian's thoughts were almost playful as the girl's childlike glee filled his presence. Placing his claw upon the restored boulder-like gate, he felt a strong enchantment placed upon the sealed room. The monster had thought it could bind Davnian. How wrong the Nerin-thing would be.

[We save who we can,] the other said, its words ringing in his thoughts as Davnian felt at the arcane lock, drawing the binding within himself through his claw.

Clumps of black crust dripped from his midsection and thighs as human flesh replaced the transient supports. Reading minds and stealing souls were powers he possessed. Surviving impossible odds was a third. And lastly, when something tried to stop him, like the bound energies within the stonework gates, he could break it. With evil intent, he felt the powers of the wailing shades used to form the energetic chains of the passage. And without a care, he destroyed them and shattered the lock, sending the massive doors backwards into ruined halls. Cracking where the edges met the archway, the stone slabs spun free of their placements and splintered along either side of the ancient passage.

[And for those we cannot save, we'll free them where they stand.]

Hatred boiled within him, the pleasure of malice seeping through his veins and into every pore. The people and the Nerin-thing above had feared a monster was in their midst. And for the first time since his awakening, he could understand their fears. No, he reveled in them. As he stepped through the archway, the swirling miasma enveloped him. The voice of the other was silent, overcome with hysterics.

Standing at the center of the chaos, laughter filled his lungs and echoed through the ruins.