Avengard: The Fall of Senvia

Chapter 25 - Tunnels

Eskir grabbed my hand and pulled me away.

"Slow down," I protested. I could have stopped him, obviously, but he was moving with such... something. Fear, passion, I couldn't quite tell.

"Are you crazy?" he shouted back to me through a new group of people we were now careening into. "What if someone saw you?"

He was right, of course. Obviously, he was right. Tearing down a poster of one of the three paths of pathoticism was one thing, but tearing down the zenith path was quite another. That was the path I was supposed to be following. The one the First Deacons followed. The same Deacon we had met, the Fifth Deacon of Senvia, followed it too. All Kindred were supposed to. It wasn't law, not technically, but practically everyone outside of Eaden Helm at least feigned its worship.

Die on the battlefield, your blade drenched in blood.

That's how you're supposed to ascend. When you reach your moment of enlightenment, it's supposed to be in the middle of a battlefield, where the fighting is thickest, where you've come out on top. That's what the zenith path teaches you. The star directly overhead. Not to the north or east or west like the other three, but entirely devoid of cardinal directions, ever-present and always watching. Mind, body, soul. Each of the three paths represented one. The zenith path represented death, because, as its teachings said, "how can you possibly master life if you can't master its end?" All the other paths combined.

I never thought about it much, but now... how dangerous that philosophy truly is.

Obviously, Eskir was hauling me away as fast as he could from the place where I'd torn apart a poster of the zenith path.

And then, like an idiot, I'd stuck back up the For Peace sign. I might as well have screamed out, "I'm a heretic."

I never was one much for religion anyway.

I tried to shake Eskir off, but he had a death grip and I didn't want to hurt him. "It's okay, Eskir, we're far enough away now."

He didn't answer. Instead, we took a sharp turn right and nearly ran into a bell tower. It was one of the older ones in the city, and certainly the oldest we'd passed by. It was large too, big enough to eclipse the gatehouse at the entrance to the city. Around it were two-story businesses and residences that kept close to its edge. The upper floors formed lips that jutted out from the buildings, casting extra shade onto the street.

We walked around the curve of the bell tower to a small alcove that had been seemingly accidentally created by newer construction. It was dark, with only a little light making its way down from above.

Eskir finally let go of my hand and knelt down to a sewer drain.

"Help me," he said.

I lifted it for him. It was much heavier than I'd expected, and likely would have taken two people had I not been Kindred. The drain cover slammed against the ground like cymbal. Eskir winced at the noise.

"Sorry. But why are we going into the sewers?"

"It's safer."

"Eskir."

"Shut up and follow me."

We snaked down a grimy ladder covered in something I really didn't want to think about. It was sticky and pulled away with my hands, and let's leave it at that.

Eskir's feet slapped against wet stone, and I jumped down beside him. The sewer was dark, but a bit of light streamed in from the opening above.

He looked up. "You didn't close it?"