bonesflameglassedit

Tydes watched for the first time as green embers sparked in the palm of her right hand, coalescing into an eerie glow. The glow green, like the chartreuse they shared last night, emanated from the plains of her palm and curled up the cliffs of her arched fingers. The air above her palm chiseled into a flame and the glow enveloped her hand--

“Are you mad?” He grabbed her arm, “Put out your flame Verdi.”

Her flame still burning she turned to face him. Her gaze fell upon his grip and suddenly his hand felt too close to furnace. He flung his grip free, his hand a flesh red began quivering like a fish out of sea.

Tydes furiously blew at his palm, “What was that for!”

“Your red-cheeked courage seemed to have carried over from last night.” She glowered.

“I told you I hardly recall any--” His tongue caught under her glower, the same piercing glower from their once childpast. At least as children her velvet hair had softened her glare. But now, her wild frizzled hair seemed all too perfect. He put his hands up, “--I’ve seeked forgiveness but you won’t have any of it. And we have a deal, a mission. I help you gather your flowers while you’re here as my guard and I’d wish you treat it so.”

“What do you think I was doing? You have a better idea about the horde of skeletons then?” She eyed down the cliff and shot back up to him,“Mister--Tydes.”

Tydes pursed his lips. He didn’t have to follow her gaze to see. To know. The sea of bones below, had long been burned into his mind. The itch remnant was why? He could not deny happenstance with how all of Daeria seemed to have been struck by a fatal illness that worsens with each passing cycle. Odd tales and worser by the cycles, are all that the winds seem to carry now. But skeletons above ground and this many only meant no happenstance to him.

As Tydes spent worried looks over the disfigured land below a rustle behind sent him swerving around. Faced against a thick fence of somber green trees, his eyes darted from one end to the other. The trees still as the unstirring air he finally looked to Verdi from the nook of his eye. She too had swayed to the tune of the rustle and her green flame was trembling more than before.

Against the silent languor Verdi returned a glance of her own to him. His body drawn forward and his arm well inside his cloak, he looked back at her. Negotiating a glance they both eased up.



Verdi returned her study upon the ground below as her distaste for the land could only dissolve into a disgusted frown. She was surprised her stomach had yet to offer any upchuck to the stench. She had her Master to thank for that. Stinkweed and frog warts was Master’s secret ingredient to many of her brews. She had forfeited many meals at the weed and wart’s expense but since then, nothing short of rot could upset her. She turned to Tydes in wait for his reluctant agreement. Surely there was no easier way than her flames to be rid of the skeletons. With one foot back, she turned to Tydes as he bent down. A small glimmer caught her eye.

The glimmer emerged into an edge and her eyes nearly fell out at the sight of his dagger. Her hand slowly closed into a fist, finally smothering her embers as her eyes pursued the dagger. The green glow forgotten seemed to assume back inside her.

Just over a foot in length the iridescent dagger drew her attention like a King in a tavern. She had never seen the dagger before but any fool that has ever had a ale or two could tell you its tales better than they could name their firstborns. Seeing it in person, the beauty the tales proclaimed did not do it justice. It shimmered it his grimy hands and Verdi wanted nothing but to rip it out from his hands, to keep his muck from soiling it. The dagger was the only one of its kind, the only weapon to have its prismatic luster in all of Daeria. The grace of its beauty lies in its transparent quality. It was told that a great hero once wielded the dagger to its perfection, able to twist and twine the dagger at the right angles that seemingly blended the dagger into the very air it cut through or blind enemies with its reflections. Other tales spoke of a darker score, when the dagger came into the possession to a notorious house of assassins, how victims perished without as much as sight of what pierced them, their eyes left frantic, searching for nothing. The only testimony of its existence, the blood that trickled down its blade. Verdi shook in her boots from all its tales rushing back to her.

“Verdi? Hello?” Tydes waved in front of her face, brandishing the dagger.

“The dagger, do . . . do you even know what it is?” She asked as her head weaved back and forth, glued to the blade.

“Glass?” He said as he heaved the dagger to her. “What’s the matter with you?”

Verdi saw the dagger leave his hands but for the second it was airborne she lost sight of it. Suddenly she felt a light thud against her chest and fumbling she brought both her arms to her chest forming a tight cradle. The dagger was caught between her jacket and one of her arms. Slowly as she reached for the dagger with her free hand, she let out a long breath that the dagger had been caught flat and non otherwise. She imagined her hide jacket let alone her flesh, would be like warm lard for the famed dagger.

Though holding the dagger, Verdi could still not believe it. She was grasping as firmly as she has ever gripped a shaft but with a flick of her wrist, just for the shortest of all instances, she was holding nothing! Even when it was wholly visible, its faint sheen alone stole her heart. She had never received any presents as a child but she imagined this was how it must have felt like. Or as close as she would come to it.

“Come on, this job isn’t going to finish itself.” Tydes called back from atop the hill.

Tearing her gaze from the dagger was not without reluctance. She looked up to Tydes, regathering her senses. “Wait . . .you don’t--” she looked back at the dagger and caught up to him atop the hill. “No . . . you can’t possibly mean this.” She said as she held the dagger over the cliff, eyeing a blanket of gray skeletons through the transparent blade.

Underneath their rugged hide ankle boots, the black hill dove several hundred paces into the ending mouth of a valley the villagers called Tar Neck. Black hills on either side, slid down to form the eponymous neckline. The Earth here had long lost its blue and green. Where old stories told of an Earth with rolling streams that filled into a lake at the end, now splooged tar. Black blisters gurgled from vile inklike pits. The valley had a stench so foul that even the skies above darkened in its waft. Overcast or non, as far as the eyes could see, the land around the valley seemed shades darker, was darker. Under a dark shade that pierced through dusk, Tar Neck was now home to a sea of bones. Amassed mostly to the left of the valley was the herd of undead warriors. No less than fifty undead skeletons was all the eye could count before the gray skulls seemed to blend in with another.

“You can’t be serious Tydes.” Verdi blurted out.

“Mister Tydes.” He answered in a smile without looking back, intent on the valley.

“I said better way. Better.” She protested. “There’s no way I’m taking on all of these undead bastards with just a dagger when I can just scorch the lot of them to ashes.” She motioned to hand the dagger back but her eyes held her arm back.

“No, you must absolutely not use any of your fire. That’s why I gave you the dagger, we will only be disarming them. Besides I don’t think your kind of fire works well on the undead.”

“What do you mean my fire won’t work on the undead? What do you know about my fire?” She turned to him intently.

Tydes whirled around with arched eyebrows then returned his gaze over the valley. “Red flames incinerate, yours aren’t red. And I didn’t say it won’t work, I said won’t work well.”

She returned with eyebrows of her own, “Where did you learn about the Cirge?” She shook her head, “This is still foolish beyond pity Tydes, I didn’t sign up to die like a fool.”

Tydes already on all fours began his descent down the hill. He yelled back, “I did not come back to find the brave girl of my childhood only to discover her a travesty!”



A rustle came once again against the still air, this time, for no ear. Behind the fringe of trees a pair of grudging eyes lurked, watching. Its eyes imperceivable underneath shadows stared intently at the two humans arguing. One scraggly-hair male of medium height with nothing on his back save a brown cloak began his descent down the cliff. The taller lanky female, with wild auburn hair as frizzled as the other was scraggly, chased after him. Even more simply dressed, her jacket and her homely trousers put her crosswise of a deer in a house. Seeing them both eventually disappear down the cliff, the watcher emerged out from inside the shadows with eyes that were not there.

Hollow sockets and without flesh, a brambly skeleton emerged. Underneath all the twigs and dark green gloomed the colour of stone. Even without sinews, its plain bones had a lean cause to them as it shambled up the hill, clinking as it stepped, to where the two humans had been.

Atop the hill, the skeleton loitered for a moment before regaining focus as it clumsily lurched across the ground. With crackling bones, its fingers dug around the edge of the precipice as it crooned its head over the cliff. The humans were spotted once again and during its watch the void in its sunken eyes shone with a vicarious fury.

In a dimly lit room, the dark melded with the light. A shadow behind a door lurked about, waiting, watching.



Verdi soon overcame Tydes’ descent and was beneath him, moving with endurance that Tydes lacked. She grumbled the whole way down the hill under the accidental drizzle of rubble--Tydes claimed. She had not like the idea of putting her life at risk when there was a safer way. Only yesterday had she gritted away a rush of emptiness when she saw him again. They thought, she thought they would never see him again, thought him lost to some marauders or some unknown beast. They both grew up in a small Church of strays. Without a word or whisper, he disappeared five years ago. And suddenly he shows up on her Master’s--her doorstep. He had better not expect her to save him. They were no longer children and she had her own hide to watch out for.

As they descended lower down the steep hill the fetid hung in an oppressive miasma. The first wave hit the hardest. The acrid stench bit her nose and parched her throat. Verdi looked up to Tydes producing a handkerchief from within his cloak, which he dropped to her. He himself drew forward his hood and swung his cloak up masking all but his watery flushed eyes. Her eyes hesitated in recognition of the handkerchief but said nothing as she struggled to tie the handkerchief around her face for her own eyes began to water from the sting.

Lower, yet lower she climbed. Finally with a leap, Verdi plunged the closing paces to the valley. A thump, a crouch and a smooth footing later she looked up to Tydes as he made the descent as well, though she was surprised to find him still as graceful as a waddling duck. Thoughts and sentences struggled to form whole as Verdi found herself uncontrollably gagging and coughing along with Tydes. Verdi with eyes squinted to a slit sees Tydes motioning for her to follow. As they made haste, Tydes points back to the large lake of tar and squeezed his nose. No further explanation was required, with each step she could already feel the caustic fumes abating.

Each assuaging step more foreign than the last, she saw how mistaken she was. From above the valley had resembled spoiled, rotten gruel. Though on foot, the valley was more than just that. The land itself seemed like a festering wound, no two paces was clean of infection or clear of its dark filth.

When she no longer had to squint her eyes out of sting, her perception provided no succor. Her vision remained the same in or out of squint. The air smothered by the effluvia, her mind’s eye had better hope seeing past the musty fog that all but blanketed the few paces in front of her.

Though, what she could see jarred her stomach. Dark green to black puss spewed from the infected Earth like the suppurative wound that it was. Effervescent goop roiled and boiled, bubbling as she edged along a stream of tar. Without warning, a dark blister ruptured out of the rotten brook, landing just in front of her. The hateful splurge immediately boiled down the infected land, dissolving it to filth. She paused to stare at her right foot and had never felt more grateful for her boots.

Through the disgust, the air reminded her of a grisly day in the brewer’s scullery. Rather, it felt like she was inside the cauldron, boiling along, in the most foul concoction of her worst brews.

Carefully she made westward under Tydes’ path. Tydes’ each eager step slowly gave way to hesitance as more than once Verdi had to yank him just short of losing his foot. The further they made into the valley, the more labile it became. The Earth grew as fickle as a spoiled mistress given druthers. The ground beneath would appear firm and sooner than your next step, it swallowed itself, a folding dark mass into steep darkness.

Tydes almost seemed excited, the way he scampered ahead, surveying the land, bending down to study the Earth, all the while urging her to keep up. It almost seemed, not the corrupted land but she who was out of place,

Shuffling her feet she twist and turned as they came to a halt in front of the largest stream they’ve come across. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, for as far as the fog allowed the half-river stretched a frothy green. She had listened to many of her Master’s tales of a land where fires burned along in streams, hissing at the nearest approach but now this. How many sundry streams did Earth have to offer? Perchance it was the size--double over any of the other streams but she couldn’t see a way across, she didn’t want to. Though now that she actually stopped to look, it resembled more slime than stream.

She heard a clank and whirled around. Like age, a skeleton unnoticed, had crept up on them--no. More, more than a handful of skeletons had gathered. “Tydes. Where are we headed? We’ve been spotted!”

“Almost there!” He replied, his voice escalating.

Verdi reeled her head in time to catch his leap. With arms flailing Tydes was already in mid-air. His body lurched forward, he managed a surprisingly lithe landing and ended in a crouch. Squatted atop the rock, he looked back with a smile, all too proud of himself.

Verdi, her jaws still loose from Tydes’ jump, suddenly realized how the stray rocks zigzagged across the stream. “Tydes are you mad? Do you even know what this green ooze is?”

“No and--” he pauses to look down for a moment, “--no. But I do know what’s behind you.” He pointed behind her.

Verdi spun around and a complete fence of skeletons had gathered. More than enough undead continued to gather, trapping her against the stream. Each staggering step seemed too quick. The skeletons were eating up the distance between them. She spun back and Tydes had already made several more leaps.

“Burn him!” She cursed as she eyed the span between the rock and land. “I will gather the wood myself!”

With one last look behind she slammed her foot against the ground into a dash--one, two, three, four! She leapt into the air with the hardest push she ever willed and with held-breath she was in the air. For the brief moment she saw her surroundings in a slow short glance. She saw Tydes up ahead, the rocks he leapt across, the rock she was soaring towards and finally the green that gurgled underneath. Remembering Tydes she tilted her body forward as she neared the climax of her leap. But in a heartbeat she saw that she was way too early to be this close to the rock. She had over-jumped . . . .

In one unbroken movement her feet crashed near the edge of the stone and immediately Verdi made to lean backwards. Still, in two mere steps, her landing stuttered her to the far-ledge of the rock and on the third, her foot stepped on air.

In one big thud, her one leg dangled off the ledge just above the spewing slime as she laid panting. Sprawled on her back with an outstretched arm, reached up and behind her she let out a breath of relief.

As the fluster wore off, the biting tingle in her hand returned. She squeezed her one hand as she brought it closer to examine. Torn fingernails and fleshly exposed fingers. Squeezing her hand again she gritted as she mighted herself away from the ledge. In unison she pulled with the outstretched arm as she pushed with her foot.

She laid placid center of the rock, looking up at the skies, rather, looking up to the effluvium ceiling. Curse this! Curse this untold slime. Curse this clime that blinds the mind, that sears the eye, that spears the nose. She closed her mind as her back ached from the juts underneath.

Jut. The jut that saved her life. As she was sliding off the edge she frantically clawed at the rock with both hand. A small gut in the rock allowed the grip that anchored her steps. She opened her eyes to the foggy murk green and then sat up. Looking down at the jut stained red in her blood, it appeared . . . to be a skull? Her head faltered left and right as she looked behind and about. She was seated atop a . . . bone-rock? The rock was seamlessly merged with remnants of bones. Bones . . . from the skeletons. She balled her fists until it hurt. Skeletons! Why wouldn’t Tydes just let me dispose of them with my fire. We wouldn’t even have to cross this cursed valley, she cursed in her mind.

Verdi stood in a fluster, turning as if to head back but the fence of skeletons had gathered by the edge, waiting for, watching her. She yelled every foul denunciation she knew at them.

Before Verdi made her last leap she was already on fire. A green glow fully enveloped her body while her clothes began a white effulgent glow, as if on the slow brink of bursting into flames. Her hair and her palms blazed a half pace of fire into the air. Her eyes pierced into Tydes as she made her way towards him. Tydes backing with hands held up, gestured to the gathering skeletons on this side of the stream. Paying no mind, she held her eyes for Tydes and Tydes alone.

Tydes shuffling backwards in a fit, tripped over a pile of bones seen too late by both of them. Sprawled on his back, covered in bones, Tydes gave a pinching yelp as countless sunken eyes stared back at him. Pairs and pairs of depressed caves recessed in darkness sent him leaping to his feet only to fall back down again as his foot struggled to find footing underneath.

Verdi quelched her flames and hurried over to offer her hand. “You can jump on them but you can’t touch them?”

“They were staring right back at me!” He shivered, “Felt like they were watching me, been watching me or something.”

Worms the size of small branches with thousand legs, suddenly squiggled out of eye sockets and buried its way underneath the heap. The skulls toppled over as more and more darted out and in, thousands of legs rippling in waves. The cascading pile of bones incited more inhabitants for bugs as big as hands, as dark as tar scurried out from underneath the pile of bones.

Verdi watched in amazement of the gigantic bugs as she felt Tydes, who had been by the pile of bones was now crouching behind her. She wondered if any of them could be used in brews.

She faced him as he stood frantically itching himself overwhelmed with shivers.

Suddenly she felt a smile tug across her cheek.

Verdi turned to Tydes with a cold stare and motioned for him to be still. She crept slowly to him and pointed to his shoulder with distended eyes and pointed back to the pile of bones.

Tydes who had been painfully still was now blue to his face. She could see the sweat leak out of him. Once his eyes slowly realized where she had pointed he immediately dissolved into a hearty yelp. Like a drunken farmer he danced with the finesse of his livestock, running himself in circles. He jumped and screamed, writhing with anguish he swiped at his shoulders, trying to shake it off. Only moments later when her laughter had trumped his yelps did he realize her bent over in tears.

Away from the tar stream and into an unfolding field of skeletons, they finally made their way. Verdi’s smile quickly faded to the sight of the field. She had known in the back of her mind that this was where Tydes would eventually lead them but she had hid that thought in the corner where it belonged.

Verdi, with one last look, saw once again, the eager in his eyes and the colour in his steps. “Tydes, we can still avoid this. All of them. Why must we put ourselves at risk. Let me use my flames!”

“I won’t have you wasting your flames on a problem they can’t solve.”

“You know nothing of my flames!” She looked down to her clenched fists “Why did you ask me to come then!”

“Because when we were young, I saw you for just a brute. But I--” he looked to the enclosing skeletons wary of their presence. “--I now know there is more to you, to all of us back then.”



Back to back Tydes and Verdi entered the field burdened with grey and one by one they fended off the skeletons as they made their slow way across. At first the skeletons seemed to move at such a lethargic pace that even Tydes had no trouble holding his own against the predictable dead. He saw clearly for the first time the details of each skeleton. With a skin of faded gray, their deep cavernous sockets drew observing eyes in, as if a ploy to replace their void, with eyes that remarked too long. A hollow notch hung empty, sunk into itself above rows of foul soiled teeth.

A skeleton with a missing jaw, a skeleton with fissures across the skull, no two were completely alike. They were all bones, no sinews, nothing. Each link of bone, an appendage of the next, fractured or gray they remained intact as if some invisible chain held them integral. The more he swung out with his dagger or thrashed out with his heel, the less menacing the skeletons became.

Cutting off a skull or cracking a bone, only dazed the skeletons a moment before they re-embodied themselves, limbs whole and broken fitted itself back with the body.

One-by-one, two-by-two, three-by-three they came back in overwhelming numbers. Wave after wave the steady clink and jangle of chafing bones staggered into the blades of their daggers. The occasional jarring crunch from their kicks filled the air along the steady sounds of swift blades.

As more and more skeletons piled on through his sweat and sore, the leaden land seemed to give a celebrity to the undead. The shadows from which Tydes once saw clearly, now seemed to grant the enemies stealth, obscuring their movements. The staggering steps that had once seemed to creep now felt like forceful marches. Now and amiss, a vigorous skeleton barely noticed, charged out from underneath the marching grey, swinging and slamming its large canescent broadsword.

Each clawing hand swiped closer under his nose, each jagged finger just out of reach. Their slashes swung out further and further, a hair closer each time from splitting a cavern across his chest.

He could feel each trickle of sweat traversed down his face as each breath came harder, shorter and harsher. His lungs clamped to the underbelly of his throat, thirsting for oxygen his heart failed to competently cycle throughout his body. Each step as stiff as a mule came a fraction slower than the last, each sore swing came with the declining accuracy of a fool thrown from a tavern. But through the jagged breaths deadening aches he felt great. He had ne’er felt better. He could feel the blood rushing through his body, each swing and step became a thoughtless repetition as if trained into him. His motions might have slackened but his focus was ablazed. His mind’s eye mapped out several succeeding attacks all at once on both offense and defense, forming an impression for his body to flow into and out of seamlessly, relying less and less on simple dexterity but more and more on patterns.

As he made their way across the field, one drudging step at a time surrounded by a sea of skeletons, Tydes settled into a zen unbeknownst to him.

His mind allowing, he spared a watch towards Verdi and was aghast at her vehement dance. It was clear he had brought her along for a reason. His elder, she was always more swift and more . . . combat-friendly than he, even as children. Her footwork was almost graceful as she mirrored him, inverting his motion. Using her back, she responded to him like a pendulum. She followed through with her right as he swung out with his right. Ducking and dodging, she yelled out targets back and forth, becoming the eyes and ears for both of them as if they were seasoned partners.



As Verdi called out a blind target to Tydes, she could feel his motions sag. She picked up her pace to shield his slack.

Her back already soaked and with sweat dripping down her chin Verdi had forgotten momentarily her distaste for Tydes’ suicidal plan. The skeletons, a link of bones was no different to her than a link of meaty limbs for her brews. Just an ingredient for her blade to cut. Though with each twist of her head and swing of her blade, she found herself with more and more acrimony. The colour of each ashen bone began to resemble a tombstone. It gloomed of her master’s tombstone. She had spent most of what little coin her Master had left her on that piece of rock. With each slash of the dagger Verdi swung the next with more fervor, with more deft. Even her grunt had more moxie. Pathetic, she felt, for spending too much coin on a piece of rock. She swung faster again as if fires spurred each attack. But she had little care for coin and it was the proper burial her Master deserved. With each stab her body felt released. Each swing stemmed from the dance in her feet. Her finesse climbed through her thighs from the soles of each step, twining the pliancy of her hips. The force coiled up and around her shoulders, capturing the agility in her arms and converged all her grace, up through the guard of the dagger. Finally releasing through the tip at first contact, she swung with a fury that cursed at the silent illness that fell her Master. She found herself striking with such force that skeletons struck by her stopped returning. What didn’t shatter, laid quiescent in a pile of bones.

Dagger and limb began to merge as one. In harmony, she had ne’er felt her body this way before. Verdi couldn’t help but enjoy the sensation of wielding such a famed blade. How many in her village could brag about wielding such a weapon? She doubt even her master could wager a boast as tall.

“Have I mentioned how--duck!” Verdi yelled out. They both crouched under, barely avoiding a pearly white broadsword overhead. “How increasingly stupid this whole piss-idea continues to become!”

“Says the person that seems to be enjoying this the most!” Tydes yelled back, smiling as a skeleton crunched under his boot.

“You can’t charm me with this dagger.” She added, “Not forever!”

In the midst of battle, she could feel the presence of Tydes slip from her. Then, before she could spare a glance, she felt a strong tug as she was yanked backwards.

Regaining her step as she stumbled into darkness, she turned to Tydes, who was running . “Hey! What was that--”

“Hurry help me close these doors before they get in!” He said, back leaned against the door pushing with all his weight.

“Where are we!” She asked as she joined him with arms outstretched against the large doors.

The doors shutting them in complete darkness, Verdi lights a small flame in her palm, laying a green film of light for the eyes, as Tydes slammed the drawbar into place.

Each breath a desperate grasp, Tydes squeezed out a reply, “Church?” He then settled onto the ground, sprawling on his back as a bed of dust billowed out from underneath.

Verdi wiped the sweat off her forehead and made her way over to one of many thick columns that disappeared into the darkness within.

“Atop the hill--” Tydes said in between pants, “--was partially camouflaged against the hills between the death lilies. I had trouble spotting it through the smog. But it gave it away by crowding the skeletons together like that.”

“It?” She spun to him. “And what is a church doing in all places but here, in Tar valley?”

“A home, this valley use to be a home.”

She ran her hand down the column, brushing off a layer of dust. “What are we doing inside this abandoned church? Did you need to rest?”

“Our mission.” Tydes replied as he finally sat up.

“Our mission?” She wiped the dust on her pants. “Our mission is outside of those doors, is it not?”

Tydes swung an exhausted look to the barred doors, “Heavens no. Now that is finally over, this is where the fun begins.”

“Fun?” Her question, a jarring echo into the darkness. “You telling me we risked our lives out there for fun?”

“No. We risked our lives out there to get the flowers you were promised to save your town--”

“Our town,” Verdi interrupted.

“Along with,” Tydes continued, “ridding the valley of the undead.”

“Then tell me what are we doing in here!” She said with eyes ablazed.

“How did you think them come to be? The undead.” Tydes simply replied.

“What else but the land? The tar pits, the mort earth. The hills are as black as night, not to mention the blatant foul stench. A child could tell you this was an accursed land.”

“And how do you think the accursed land came to be?”

“Stop with your questions and get to your point!” Verdi could feel her fire whipping inside. “How am I to know how this accursed land came to be! The night skies grow darker and longer by each passing cycle. Strange tales not even the merchants can explain and they know the land better than you or I know the back of our hands! Nightmares save even the best Weavers fail to recount with courage. If I could explain any of the strange happening all across Daeria, I would be seeking an audience with the King, wouldn’t I? ”

“Right,” he says as he meets her eyes, “and we’re here to see for ourselves, one of those very tales that no one seems to be able to explain.”

“This is not one of those tales. Animals and creatures seemingly running themselves to their deaths, leaving the Great Red Smear of the North is a tale! Out there--” she jabbed her finger at the door, “--we have simple answers staring you in the face and all you want is to say otherwise! I know having a horde of skeletons is neither good nor normal but burn me, who can say what’s normal anymore? The blissful days crinkly, aged-blistered villagers spoke of were long gone before you and I both squeezed our first breaths.”

“I think the dead are about because a Necromancer called them here.” Tydes says blankly.

“A what!”

“One that controls the--”

“I know what they are! I heard the stories along with you as children. Why would one be here?”

“If it pleases you, I’ll ask about its well-about when we meet the Necromancer.”

“This is laughable, Tydes. You of all to believe in people that command the dead? You were always the first to run out of the room with ears covered when the Weavers whispered of their tales!”

Tydes dug his hand into his cloak and a brief moment later, his hand jerked out with a fistful of flowers.

“The death lilies!” Verdi said with eyes a-gasp.

“This is just a handful, out there is more than enough to brew a whole cauldron of whatever brew you please.” Tydes pushed the lilies into her hands. “You and I both know that these are rare because they don’t grow unless the soil recently gave rise to the dead.

“That doesn’t prove there is a Necromancer,” she refused to believe.

“No but don’t you see all the signs Verdi? Don’t settle for convenience. There has to be something here!”

Verdi eyed the lilies in deep thought and looked to the barred door. “I don’t have much choice but to chase this fool’s errand, do I?”

“Prove me wrong. If you’re right, it will be but a moment and we can return with your flowers. But if I’m right--” his eyes perked up, “--I can’t go on without you.”

With a big sigh, Verdi doubled her green flame and took the lead.

Further in for what seemed like too long, all they could see was two endless row of columns, one on each side. Covered in dust, Tydes stopped examining them after the twentieth one. Shortly after what seemed like the hundredth column, corners and rooms began to unfold in the darkness.

They endlessly wandered through rooms after rooms, corner after corner. “Tydes!” She called after him, “You know if there is actually something here, it would be better if you didn’t run off like that!”

Verdi did not spend much care for each room, the sore in her body began to take hold of her and she wondered how Tydes who had seemed like an overburdened foal could chase room after room. The hanging cobwebs by each corner didn’t help either. She made sure Tydes--even with the stir in his step sending him ahead, could hear her curses, some, most of them intended for him.

Growing tired in trying to twist a slimy web out of her hair Verdi lets out a frustrated grunt and her hair burst into flames. A glimpse of green flash traced her dry auburn hair at crooked angles before dissipating seamlessly back into her head. After a short sizzle, she brushes the burnt web out of hair.

Suddenly screaming echoes are heard from afar. Finicking her hair she slaps out the last of the burnt web and breaks into a dash, running as fast as she could towards his voice. “What is it? Are you okay?” She said as she neared his voice.

Rounding a corner she sees Tydes hunched over, slowly backpedaling while brandishing his small dagger. She looks around him and a pair of red glowing--many pairs of glowing eyes stares back from within a pitch-black room.

“Stay back! You don’t want any of this!” Tydes threatened as swung out, pitifully.

Does he actually know how to use a blade? She thought.

He continued to back, eventually bumping into her.

“Are you serious Tydes?” She snapped her fingers and the spider bursted into flames. Its body jerked its way about and fleeted up a wall. The spider, on fire revealed a ceiling full of eggs held in place by expansive white webs that stretched into the darkness. Tydes squealed at the sight. The spider scurried across the ceiling only to fall with a thud, scrunched over on its back. The crackling flames sizzled as Tydes’ eyes were glued to the dark ceiling overhead.

He slowly turned to Verdi but she was already gone. Forcing a swallow he straightened up, “Right. Nicely done.” He brushed his cloak and followed after her. “They are way too large!” he yelled after her. “Spiders don’t need to be that big!”

From then on, every odd room threw Tydes into a fit. She began to wonder if his heart would fall off the edge of his sleeves before we found this supposed Necromancer.

As her flame danced in her palm, they eventually gone through all the rooms and found themselves left with one last corridor. Her sizzling steps came to a halt as she crooned her neck up. Lodged in front was a thick slab.

The dark slab, as black as the shadows her flames cast away towered over them. If there was a necromancer this vile pigment would be its doing, she thought.

Tydes found a small opening to peek through.

As she made to see for herself, her arm was yanked near the opening by Tydes, “Pews . . . .” He motioned for Verdi to look.

She immediately drew the glass dagger on guard and then took her turn. “Remind me again what exactly are we looking for?”

“We’ll never know if we don’t get into that room.”

“What for? It’s dead still.” She frowned.

“Exactly. It’s too silent. And it seems to be the last room” He smiled back.

“Tydes--” she began but her frown slowly turned on itself, “--you know what, sure. I’m bound to see you piss yourself in that big dark room. How do you suggest we move this slab?”

“With your fire.”

“First you doubt my fire. Now you want me to use it?”

“No, no. They won’t do much to this slab. While you’ve been busy cursing me for generations to come, I’ve been busy mapping out the whole place.” He started down the corridor. “If I’m not mistaken, there was a room back round, that should extend past to the other side of this stone. You can muster enough spunk to burn through rotten walls right?”

She snapped her fingers and a flame ignited under Tydes’ bottom from within his cloak. The crackle of ember echoed down the corridor.

“Yeow!” Tydes jumped up into the air that instant. He furiously slapped at his bottom, yelping in between slaps.

After finally patting out the fire, he thoughtlessly sat down to catch his breath. Only to shoot straight back up from the pain. “By the heaven’s above, your fires are hard to put out. Mulish just like their creator/user.”

Verdi raised her hand up.

“Stout I mean! Strong-willed!” He said cowering.

They backtracked to the room Tydes identified. Verdi motioned for Tydes to stand clear. She closed her hand into a fist, dissipating the glow and the green flame from her hand, shutting the room pitch black. With a flash of green, her hand was open again. A plume of green flame welled from her palm. Before, her fire was but a dim candle. Now the room was as brightly lit as if daylight was stretched across the walls.

For the first time they could see the stark death all across the ground and walls of the room. On one wall plastered a shadow, unbeknownst whether it had died first from the blade jutting from its side or from the sorcery that stained its eternal image across the wall. Corpses laid to and fro, some still relatively fresh obscured by maggots. Tydes shivered at the overwhelming urge of death. His sense, their sense of smell spoiled by the stench outside, only now began to register the overwhelming stink of death from the sight. Tydes seeing the remains triggered a reflex in him. He ran to a corner and hurled.

Verdi gathered her flames and hurled them at the wall one by one letting the spit and fizz of her fire drown out Tydes’ hurling.

With ease, her green flames slowly devoured the rotten wood. Leaving a mouth in the wall drooling green down onto the ground.

Verdi, dagger in her right, fire in her left, she slowly crept to the wall with Tydes right behind.