(Book 5) Hayden Mackay and The Pride of Haima-Endira

25.2 The Tenth Day

My thoughts began to flicker back and forth, from negative to positive, the moment I stepped out of the cave. It was as though standing between two trains crossing each other. I presumed Almourah's dark magic was pervaded in his territory, what else could it be. It must be his way of scare anyone away from getting closer to him. I was determined to do it tonight, Tyrell wanted me to as well. Even though feeling uneasy about the whole thing, I walked my way towards the lighthouse.

Step after step. Thought after thought. My mind was a fuss. He was making it bleary. Lighthouse was right up ahead, standing tall piercing through the sky. I trudged along with its dappled shadows. With every step I took, the shackles of fear loosened. I talked through myself that I wasn't doing this because of some pact made a thousand years ago, but for the people I loved, for the country, I wanted to love.

My heart began to hammer so hard that I could hear it beating. I stepped into the lighthouse, the rotten smell becoming stronger and awful. It was like sitting in a huge garbage bin filled with blood-leaking dead bodies. My eyes were still droopy and now involuntarily shrunk, streaming with moisture. It was getting unbearable and I had to pinch my nose as I stepped further in.

Darker and strangely inclement. I lit my fingers and moved my hand, taking my mind off Nazira who was staring at me with her fearful and tired eyes, as if she has been crying for a while. There was absolutely nothing at all to scrutinize in this lighthouse. Except the aged spiral wooden staircase, raising high and steep into the murky gloom.

Thud!

I was startled at the sound but it didn't scare me from stepping up the stairs that began to vibrate like a hammock. It was the thud of the chopped wood echoing throughout the lighthouse.

Thud!

My heart leaped to my mouth, a hard lump forming in my throat making me difficult to swallow. The threads were unstable. Besides the shakiness, the banister felt clammy and I didn't need to think twice that it was covered with blood. I increased the intensity of my fire, and I kept climbing up. Gibbets came into the picture, they were anywhere overhung from the ceiling. Inside were the sliced decomposing pieces of Matsyasvi.

My pervading senses, the intolerable smell and the sound of the dismantling of the wood, made me more nervous than I already was. I quickened my pace to feel less scared and gave a halt only at the last thread of the stairs.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

The sound was nearer and louder now. I made my way towards it, my hands lit, and fire intact. There was a faint flicker of the lantern in the narrow passageway leading me towards the small arched entrance. The thudding sound was coming right from inside the room and I felt luring towards it. Within moments, I stood beneath the arched doorway.

My eyes watered as I squinted. There was lumber spread over the stone-flagged floor of this chamber. Freshly rooted out Vrindahina trees, most of the leaves plucked off and its wooden trunks segregated. A pile of hefty tombs and caskets were clustered upon one another. The most disgusting part of the chamber was the corner where the human organs and the tails of the Matsyasvi, as raw as the carcass stationed at the butchers were lying helpless. Blood, torn muscle, innards and whatnot, the spectacle of his insanity driven by the thousand-year-old hatred was a horrific sight to behold.

I swallowed hard and gazed through my moistened eyes in the middle of the chamber. There he was, sitting on the floor. His bared back sweaty, bloody and greasy with his matted hair stuck to his ghostly pale skin, was faced towards me. Red and zigzag streaks of veins visible like the branches of trees. He pulled his long legs covered with a shabby black loincloth slightly up. One of his hands holding the trunk of the tree and the other, the Blade. It wasn't anything to marvel at, just the normal bland carved wooden piece of the legendary dagger.