World Without Song

Chapter 5: Silent Cathedral

Yhidawach

The travel has been rather easy, which served to discomfort Yhidawach more than if he had been attacked every step he took.

At the moment he has yet to reach the borders between the Empire and the Ivy Kingdom. There is still a long way to go to reach Ephrastill.

His carriage was led by Jacob and two other horses, filled with various supplies for the long journey... along with various accommodations should he need to take a woman. This just made his travel slower but it was a necessity.

A week would pass and he would reach the border, where the Ivy Kingdom was supposed to give him free passage.

That seemed suspicious to Yhidawach, or perhaps they were so welcoming since he was on a suicide mission.

They probably didn't want to ignite the Slash Emperor's ire.

...

The border check had been quiet and peaceful, aside from a knight who wanted to test the so called Knightslayer from the Empire.

Yhidawach obliged, and killed another knight along with his Arid woman. The Ivy Kingdom was covered in plant-life that can grow in harsh winter climates. The Chilled Rose, a particular vine type plant that would crawl all over buildings and bloom even in the harshest cold with brilliant blue flowers.

He stayed at the Kingdom only as long as he had too. Although he didn't enjoy the idea of fighting the last Land-dragon alive with sin on his back, he endured.

The snow soon gave way to desolate cold lands with frozen red ground; no plants grew near the Silent Cathedral for some reason. Pieces of metal, varying in size and structure stuck out the ground in place of plant life, and much like the stories spoke, there was no sound... Yhidawach could not even hear his own voice. The silence was brutal.

Jacob was a strong horse but even he wouldn't continue forward when they got close to the gigantic structure that was the Silent Cathedral.

It was larger than most castles, though Zimrest only slightly beat it in height; the rest was pretty much on par.

It looked ancient, derelict, yet it felt alive, the pipes sticking out of every opening and extending into the sky made no noise despite heavy winds blowing nonstop, in fact not even the wind made noise.

The sight is more than enough to drive lesser men mad. It was oppressive and stacked dread upon dread to whatever looked at it.

Despite this Yhidawach continued forward on foot.

In front of the entrance waited one lone creature.

It had long, spindly, thin limbs with half a human face and an elongated torso with no other human like features, it did not even have eyes or a nose, no ears either... just teeth that were shaped like spikes.

Whatever it was it stood up on two legs like a human.

Yhidawach was certain it was facing him and that it was aware of him. Its knees bent backwards and the creature leaned forward, its motions were oddly stunted, stopping and starting again at random.

The maw was unhinged and the spikes that served as its teeth wriggled around like worms.

"wHat arE YoU sEeKiNg HERe???? __." Yhidawach couldn't hear, but he still listened. The voice was in his head, horribly loud and spoke in a screech that had trouble pronouncing the words themselves.

Before Yhidawach could answer, two more of the same creatures crawled like spiders out of the pipes and descended down next to the first one.

They were all the same, with no difference to them.