Horror of Light

  Kai, bent under the weight of the bag of light powder, dragged behind Ger through the dark tunnel. For some reason, the Sons of Light did not light the way with torches, but used dimly glowing crystal shards that barely illuminated the silhouettes of people and their surroundings. Kai was dressed in a horror-bringer uniform that didn't fit him properly, and after the loose robe he felt like his clothes wanted to squeeze all thoughts of Darkness out of him.

  To Kai's right walked Ham with his hammer at the ready, casting barbed glances at him. To his left was Rin, a thin woman carrying her bag with confidence. The procession was rounded out by a burnt Gor and a snake-tattooed horror-bringer whose name Kai didn't learn. Somewhere in the distance, water gurgled and dripped and bones crunched beneath their feet, but in the trap of Kai's ears, the Litany Wrath of the Fallen was still bouncing off the curves of his ears: ‘The worm in rock the truth devours...’

  "Yes, it's a completely unequal exchange: one servantboy for Via, Dir and Gam," Ham decided to speak.

  "Fok has promised to give us two more when Rem's party returns from the Nether Tower," Ger said without turning.

  "We'd need five, not two, to make up for the servantboy's messing up the case."

  "He won't be messing or helping today, he's just going to see how our operations go. So just stay close, Kai," Ger turned around. His scarred face looked sinister in the crystal light.

  "Nothing to do?" Ham rubbed his chin playfully, then shifted his gaze to Kai, rubbed his chin thoughtfully again, and looked at Kai again. "You think he can handle such a difficult task."

  "Ham," Rin intervened. "You yourself on the first mission did not defeat all the bars, did not kick the tyrant in the ass, did not replace the commander and did not carry the rest of the squad on your back, and just pi..."

  "So we're going to blow up the shrine?" Ham changed the subject abruptly.

  "Yes. We blow up the crystals, burn the altars, and free as many entombed as we can," Ger answered.

  "And the people there?" Kai swallowed. "We'll do it at noon, when there are the least people there...?

  " Oh, so we have to choose the time to please the slaves of tyrants?" Ham snorted. "Their blood is on the Lords."

  "The Redeemer will forgive," Ger added, but more gently. "He will come, Kai. He will destroy the lies, destroy the Lords, redeem our sins. We are preparing his way."

  "The Redeemer?" Kai's curiosity asked.

  "He doesn't even know about the redeemer," Ham said irritably.

  "How could he? The lords fear Him like the Light," Ger lowered his voice, and the tunnel led upwards. "A true redeemer, unlike the false redeemers. They were almost victorious, but at the decisive moment they had an ‘epiphany’. The lords broke them - by fear, blackmail, magic - I don't know how."

  Ham hummed:

  "Servantboy, just like you, only in reverse."

  The tunnel led the procession to the hatch to the surface. Gor silently handed out sweat-smelling mantles from his bag and took Kai's bag. Kai pulled the mantle on, but was still at the mercy of the chafing jumpsuit.

  The nameless horror-bringer shoved a handful of brightly coloured mushrooms into his mouth, and his eyes flashed.

  "A training raid? Then watch me, servantboy, and learn how to do it right!" he shouted in a whisper, raising his hands with hammers. "Let us spill rivers of servant blood today, enough to reach our home!"

  Ger carefully lifted the hatch and peered out into the light. Making sure everything was in order, he turned to the others and gave his final instructions:

  "Hoods down, blend in. Rin, Gor - crystals. Ham, Ori - altars. Kai, follow me. There shouldn't be any etherite, but if you notice any, focus on one neutral thought."

  As the squad made their way to the surface, Kai realised how much he missed the fresh air. Outside, the only people in the street were the depersonalised wandering about, and vermidon was arguing with his sliznekry about something. Kai pulled his hood down and concentrated on Ger's back as he led them forward.

  Kai realised why the horror-bringers were so elusive - they used the underground tunnels that twisted beneath the entire City. But this discovery raised even more questions for him: were the hatches uncontrolled, and did no one notice the unknown groups using them? How many witnesses had they killed to keep their secret?

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  The wayshrine of the Voice loomed in the centre of the looped street, where the buildings dared not come any closer. At the sight of the black circular temple, glowing with red stained glass, Kai was not thrilled for the first time, but cold. The crowd at the entrance - worshippers in robes with children or angels of pleasure, and there were a couple of vermidons and krumbirs - flowed slowly inside. The Litanies sounded monotonously, the crystals pulsing to the rhythm. If it was so crowded at the entrance, then there were probably no free spots left inside.

  "Great. It'll be easy to blend in," Ham whispered.

  Pushing through, the squad joined the crowd. Ham was right - everyone was absorbed in the struggle for personal space and didn't notice the group of unamuleted people. Kai, because of his short stature, could only see the mantles of others, but Ger confidently led them through the crowd.

  Standing between the wall and the pillar, where the bodies were less crowded against each other, the horror-bringers split up. Only Ger and Kai remained standing.

  Kai felt nausea coming up his throat. The air was heavy, and the darkness of so many dark mantles shrouded his eyes. Children clung to their parents, amulets rustling in the fabric of the mantles. A familiar servant, a mentor, clutched an amulet and whispered something about the Darkness. Kai turned away, a shard of dream humming in his neck, echoing the crowd.

  "Remember, Kai. Not a step without me. We are shadows, not heroes, only heralds," Ger whispered.

  "What if something goes wrong?" Kai asked quietly.

  "Then we'll know about it quickly," Ger grinned wryly.

  And they did really find out quickly. A shout of ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ broke the usual noise. It was followed by the sound of hitting something (or rather, into something) soft and wet, but with something hard and brittle inside. The screams, which did not bode well for anyone, echoed through the wayshrine. Ger and Kai looked at each other.

  A new centre of horror erupted at the other end of the crowd, and the waves of screams met and crashed against each other, but they were amplified rather than drowned out. A madness had begun. Everyone in the crowd wanted to be on the street no matter the cost. Ger grabbed Kai by the scruff of his neck and dragged him, shielding him from the crowd. Before Kai's eyes a krumbir was swept away and trampled on, what can one say about softer humans. Smoke and the smell of burning filled the building.

  Out of the crowd, waving bloody hammers, a laughing Ori jumped out. People tried to distance themselves from him, but there was too little room, and other panicked people pushed at their backs. Mutilated bodies piled up around the mad horror-bringer, splattering his uniform.

  Kai's feet lifted off the floor, and he flew backwards, dragged by Ger through the stained glass window. The glass shattered into tiny shards. One of them slashed across Kai's mantle, severely cutting it. Ger and Kai collapsed onto the red parts of the stained glass windows outside, which was still calm, a stark contrast to the chaos inside the wayshrine.

  Ori jumped out after them and began crushing the people who were trying to escape through the new passageway with his hammers. The horror-bringer's face glistened with sweat, washing away the blood of others.

  Time slowed for Kai, an inert fog appear around his head, blurring everything around him. The sounds of the world struggled to break through to his ears. At the exit of the wayshrine was a veritable death zone, set up by the people themselves. Bodies lay on top of each other like dropped statues. Some were still moving, some were screaming, but the sounds were as if from the underwater world - muffled, helpless. Blood flowed as if from a dragon. Kai finally threw up.

  Ger left Kai and pinned Ori to the ground, trying to twist his arms. Ham, having stopped fighting Ori through the shattered stained glass window, got out and kicked Ori.

  "Stupid mushroom-eater," Ham said angrily.

  Kai continued to turn inside out as Rin approached them. At Ger's questioning look, she shook her head sadly. Gor was dead. Ger and Ham lifted the exhausted Ori up, and then there an explosion happened. Kai and the horror-bringers were thrown off the building. All the stained glass windows burst, the walls collapsed on the people left inside, the dust, Darkness bless it, hid most of the carnage.

  Kai fell to the pavement and decided to stay lying down. The shard of dream throbbed convulsively. The screams were becoming deafening, or Kai was just used to them. ‘This is a dragon dream, Kai. And you are its co-creator,’ the voice of reason ruthlessly delivered its verdict, breaking through the taut fog.

  Kai noticed the victim of his horroring nearby, crawling on the ground but still clutching the amulet in one hand. Kai still decided to rise on wobbly legs. He only managed to take one step, but Ger grabbed him.

  ‘’We're leaving!‘’ he shouted and dragged Kai along with him.

  Only one guard of harmony stood in the way of the horror-bringers, his sword already blazing. Rin struck him in the ankle area with her red hammer, and when he fell, Ham crushed his helmet with a chopping blow.

  Ger was dragging Kai by the arm, but he could barely move his legs, though he only had eyes for them. He was trembling, and the screams from the wayshrine still echoed in his ears. Every rustle made him flinch. His mind was blank, with only occasional images of crushed bodies.

  When the horror-bringers and Kai had disappeared into the sewers, Ger turned to the staggering Ori:

  "Restrain yourself, you fool! But the altars were burned, the crystals shattered. Good job."

  Ori smirked, licking the blood off the hammer. Kai ran out of food inside and just started gasping for air, as if his body wanted to vomit air. In front of his inner gaze, his parents' faces became even clearer.

  He didn't want to be here. Didn't want to be anywhere. He looked at his hands and didn't see any blood, but he knew: it was there. Somewhere under his fingernails, inside his skin, behind his eyes, spreading through his dark soul.

  An inner voice whispered: ‘You knew what the horror-bringers wanted. But you did nothing. You're an accomplice.’ Kai wanted to object, to say he hadn't killed, hadn't wanted it, had just followed Ger. But he remembered the eyes of the one who'd crawled away, clutching the amulet. No one would listen to such excuses. Not even himself.