Darksiders: The Seed of Knowledge

Chapter Fifteen

War couldn't stop cursing.  Just as he'd finished cleaning the vomit from his armor, his home—and Faith—had vanished before his eyes.  He immediately had set out to find her, Chaoseater in hand, but the endless darkness rendered navigation nigh impossible.  Only when he'd felt the familiar tremors in the stone floor had he realized what was going on.

"Agramon!" he'd called out.  "What is this?"

"It's simple, really," the demon had said.  His voice sounded from all directions at once, and War found himself spinning to face the danger he couldn't see.  "You refused to let the girl come to my lair of her own volition, so I took the liberty of bringing my lair to you."

War didn't know how long he'd searched.  The shadowed maze shifted and changed at random.  Only his familiarity with the terrain of the stone realm kept him alive as he ran.  He lost Fenrir and Ruin somewhere in the maze, but the mounts were not as important as finding the girl.  Her illness had weakened her, and there was a chance that Agramon had already invaded her mind in search of whatever knowledge she possessed.

I should've been more vigilant, he scolded himself.  Should've—

Faith's scream blasted his mind more forcefully than the last time.  Terror flooded through him, though he knew it wasn't his, as he held still and listened.  Just like her first scream, the sound told him where he would find her.

War rushed, leaping crevices and turning through corridors that formed and deformed before and behind him.  He let nothing slow him down, not even the abominations of a child's most frightening nightmare.  He thought he saw his brothers at one point, but he dismissed it.  He had no time for them.

He heard Faith scream again.  "No!  Not my mother!  Not my mother!"

The Horseman increased his speed as she howled in despair.

Finally, he came to the room where Faith sat huddled against a wall.  She was barely visible in the darkness, encased in her black armor.  He came closer and saw that her wrist blades were extended as she shifted and twitched her arms and legs.  Her entire body trembled, her head bowed above her knees, her face hidden by her dampened hair.  She reeked of sweat, vomit and blood, though he had cleaned that from her face when he'd carried her into his house.  Then he noticed the puddle of bile near her left and her rapid, heavy breathing.  The sounds that came from her were a mixture of fear, exhaustion and pain.  Beside her, Dust hopped from side to side, flapping his wings and cawing frantically.

"It's not real," she was mumbling, her voice raw.  "It's not real.  It's not real.  It's not real."

Cursing silently, War placed Chaoseater on his back and approached.  She didn't seem to notice him, perhaps mistaking him for part of the illusions.  When he crouched before her and reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder, however, her head snapped up and she lashed out with her wrist-blades.  Unfazed, he caught her wrists before she even came close to landing a blow.  She shrieked and struggled against him, proving how weak and exhausted she truly was.

"You'll hurt yourself if you keep this up," he said, trying not to sound as irritated as she was making him.

"But of course," Agramon said, somehow beside him and from a distance, still choosing to remain unseen.  "She's already worn herself out tremendously."

"Shut up!" Faith cried.

Alarmed (though it may have been the effects of the demon's lair), War pinned her to the wall with his left hand and shifted his right to grip her jaw, careful not to break any bones.  His bright eyes and crescent mark offering faint illumination, he leaned forward and studied her face.  There was an unhealthy pallor beneath the flush of her fever.  Her breath reeked of vomit and phlegm.  Sweat dripped heavily from her brow as hot tears streamed down her cheeks.  Her eyes were frightened, dazed and bloodshot beneath their drooping lids and her nose . . . was bleeding.