Chapter Two: What the Darkness Keeps

The first thing Éloïse noticed was the skull. Her training supplied the first instinctive questions—distance, speed, cover, retreat—while a less disciplined part of her mind recoiled at the sight of human remains carried inside a living weapon.

It floated inside the slime, turning slowly in the yellow light of the stranger's lantern. Its lower jaw was missing, and a blackened strip of flesh remained attached to one cheekbone. Several teeth drifted nearby, moving independently through the translucent substance. The second thing she noticed was that the creature had stopped moving.

It was watching them. Or rather, it had oriented itself toward them. She could see no eyes, no ears, no organs that might explain how it perceived the world. Its body was a shapeless mass of pale green matter, roughly the size of a horse, with an irregular surface that trembled continuously.

She had encountered smaller specimens during the reconnaissance expedition. Those had been manageable. This one was not small.

"Nobody move," she ordered.

The Regalian man immediately took a step backward. Éloïse resisted the urge to swear.

"I said nobody moves!"

His wife stood behind him, one hand pressed against her mouth. The northern scholar had frozen beside the extinguished fire. Sabine was kneeling near the supplies, clutching her medical bag. The naked druid had drawn a knife. Éloïse glanced at it. A narrow blade, scarcely longer than her hand. Wonderful.

The stranger with the lantern, meanwhile, appeared remarkably unconcerned. He stood several paces from the creature, his knife held loosely at his side.

"Does it have a weakness?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What?"

"Being somewhere else."

The slime advanced. Éloïse moved first. She drove her sword into its body, aiming for the darker mass near its center. The blade sank through the gelatinous surface with almost no resistance. For an instant she felt something hard.

Then the creature contracted. A tremendous pressure seized the sword. Éloïse pulled. The blade would not move.

"Son of a bitch."

The slime surged forward. Its weight made a sound like a heavy sack of wet grain dropped onto stone, but it flowed outward rather than settling. Éloïse felt the change in the air as it rushed past her knees. She released the hilt and threw herself backward.

The hiss was sharp and intimate, like fat striking a hot pan. An acrid vapor rose from the scarred stone, catching at the back of the throat. A pale tendril struck the stone where her leg had been. The surface hissed. Tiny bubbles formed along the edge of the creature's body. The smell reached her a moment later.

It was acrid and mineral, with a sourness that caught at the back of the throat. She knew the smell would cling to the place long after the creature had gone. Burning limestone. She had seen what slime did to flesh. She had no intention of experiencing it herself.

"Get away from it!"

The stranger lunged. He slashed at the creature's side, opening a long gash through the translucent mass. A quantity of green fluid spilled across the stones. The slime recoiled. Then the wound closed.

The stranger looked at his knife.

"Interesting."

Éloïse stared at him before speaking.

"Are you insane?"

"Not particularly."

"Then stop stabbing it!"

The creature struck again. This time its body spread outward in a broad sheet, rushing across the floor toward the nearest living person. Sabine. She screamed and scrambled backward. The slime caught the edge of her apron.

The fabric began dissolving. Éloïse seized the young woman by the shoulders and hauled her away. The apron tore. A strip remained behind, disappearing into the creature's body. Sabine landed hard on her back.

The impact rattled her teeth. Loose curls fell across her eyes, and she pushed them away with one shaking hand while searching the dark for the next movement of the creature.

"Get up!"

"I'm trying!"

Éloïse looked toward the others before answering.

"Fire! We need fire!"

Torsten pointed toward the extinguished pit before speaking.

"You told us to put it out!"

"Then light it again!"

Pascal

Pascal had always enjoyed watching people under pressure. He watched the group as attentively as other men might study a game of cards, noting every involuntary movement: the way Mauro placed himself before Matilda, the way Sabine looked for someone to help, the way Éloïse measured the exits without turning her head. Fear revealed things.

A man who spoke endlessly about courage might abandon his companions at the first sign of danger. A woman who appeared timid might become vicious when cornered. People who considered themselves virtuous could become remarkably inventive when their own lives were at stake.

The Tower, he was beginning to understand, offered an extraordinary opportunity to study such behavior. He had been here only a short time. Already he had learned more about human desperation than he had expected. The soldier was competent. That was obvious.

She moved with the economy of someone accustomed to violence. Even when frightened, she did not waste time screaming or pleading. She identified a problem, acted, and adapted when her first attempt failed. Pascal liked that. Competent people were useful. The healer was less impressive. She had nearly been swallowed because she hesitated.

The scholar appeared to possess considerable intelligence but little practical sense. The Regalian husband was protective. The wife was frightened. And the naked girl, Pascal glanced toward Florentine.

She was crouching beside a fallen column, holding her knife in both hands. Her long red-and-green hair had fallen across her face. Goosebumps covered her bare arms and shoulders. She was shivering in the cold air, yet she seemed determined to remain near the others. Pascal wondered how long such determination would survive genuine pain.

He had seen people become surprisingly cooperative after losing a finger. The thought pleased him. He returned his attention to the slime. It was advancing toward the Regalian couple. The husband had seized a broken length of wood.

His wife stood behind him. Pascal considered allowing the creature to reach them. He made the calculation without haste. A dead companion might be interesting; a dead company would leave him without witnesses, tools, or the shelter of other people’s efforts. It would be instructive.

But the soldier had called for fire, and the scholar was fumbling with a flint beside the pit. If the slime killed too many people, Pascal might find himself alone. He did not particularly want that. Not yet.

"Move aside," he told the Regalian man.

Mauro stared at him.

"What?"

Pascal seized the burning end of a fallen torch from beside the arcade wall. The flame was weak, but sufficient. He thrust it toward the slime. The creature recoiled violently. Its surface contracted, and a bubbling sound emerged from somewhere deep inside its body.

Pascal smiled before speaking.

"There we are."

Éloïse saw what he was doing.

"Keep it back!"

He advanced another step. The slime withdrew. Then it struck the torch. The burning wood disappeared into its body. For a moment, the flame remained visible beneath the translucent surface.

Then it went out. Pascal blinked.

"Ah."

The slime lunged. He threw himself sideways. Its body struck the column behind him. The stone cracked, a fragment broke free and struck his shoulder.

Pain flashed down his arm and he hit the ground, rolled, and came up on one knee. His knife was gone. The slime turned toward him. For the first time that evening, Pascal felt something resembling genuine alarm.

He had no intention of dying here. Not after everything he had survived. Not in this ridiculous place.

"Soldier!" he shouted.

Florentine

Éloïse was already moving. Florentine had never fought anything like it. Her bare soles registered every imperfection in the arcade floor. Cold traveled upward through her legs, and she could feel the faint tremor of the thing's movement through the stone even before it came fully into view. She had killed animals before.

She had helped slaughter livestock during the lean winters of her childhood. She had watched hunters skin deer and remove their organs. She knew the smell of blood, the warmth of fresh entrails, the peculiar way a dying animal's muscles continued to twitch after its throat had been cut. But animals possessed bodies. They had bones. Hearts. Lungs.

Places where a knife could end their suffering. The slime had none of those things. It moved like something that had forgotten what shape it was supposed to possess. Florentine tightened her grip on her knife. The creature struck the column again.

Pascal rolled away. A spray of green fluid scattered across the stones. Several droplets landed near her feet. She jumped backward. One touched the outside of her left ankle.

Pain erupted immediately. Florentine gasped. She looked down. The skin was reddening. A tiny blister formed where the fluid had touched her.

She rubbed at it instinctively. The warning cut through the panic. For an instant every face seemed to turn toward Florentine, and she stood caught between obedience and the desperate need to do something useful.

"Don't!" Sabine shouted.

Florentine stopped before answering.

"Water! Wash it!"

Florentine reached for her waterskin. The creature moved. She tried to retreat. Her heel struck a broken piece of masonry. She lost her balance.

For one awful instant she hung suspended between standing and falling. Then her feet slid out from beneath her. She struck the floor chest-first. The impact drove the air from her lungs. Her breasts hit the stone painfully, followed by her ribs and chin. Sharp grit scraped across her skin. She cried out and rolled onto her side, clutching her chest.

There was no clothing to soften the blow. Her nipples and the surrounding skin burned from the abrasion, and she felt a sharp ache beneath her right breast whenever she tried to breathe. For several seconds she could do nothing but gasp. Then she heard the slime approaching. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees.

A shard of broken pottery cut into her palm. She recoiled. Blood ran between her fingers.

"Get up!"

The soldier's voice. Florentine tried. Her right foot came down on something sharp. Pain stabbed through her sole. She screamed.

A rusted nail protruded from a fallen board. It had entered the fleshy part of her foot just behind the toes. For one bewildered instant, she stared at it. Then she pulled her foot free. Blood immediately spread across the stone.

The slime was almost upon her. Florentine crawled backward. Her injured foot dragged uselessly behind her. The creature rose. Its pale body gathered into a trembling wall.

She could see the skull suspended inside it. The empty sockets faced her. Florentine raised her knife. She knew it would accomplish nothing. But she raised it anyway.

Then something struck the slime from the side. A burning log. The creature convulsed. Éloïse seized Florentine beneath the arms and dragged her backward. Florentine screamed as her injured foot struck the ground.

"Stop moving!" Éloïse shouted.

"I'm trying!"

"Then stop fighting me!"

Florentine let herself be dragged. Her breasts and abdomen scraped against the rough stone, reopening the abrasions from her fall. She bit her lip until she tasted blood. Éloïse hauled her behind the barricade. Sabine rushed toward them.

"She's bleeding!” She yelled.

"I can see that."

"The foot!"

"Deal with it!" The soldier shouted.

Her breath came in thin, uneven pulls. The ground had abraded her bare skin, and dust clung to the sweat at her throat while she fought to keep from curling around the pain. Éloïse turned back toward the creature. Florentine lay on her side, shaking.

Her long red-and-green hair was matted against one cheek, and her breathing came in uneven bursts. She drew her uninjured leg toward her stomach, then stopped when the motion pulled at the abrasions across her chest. Her injured foot throbbed. Her chest hurt. The small burn on her ankle had begun to blister. She had been inside the Tower for less than a day.

Already she had learned that her vows offered no protection from its cruelty.

Torsten

Torsten finally managed to light the fire. He had been trying for what felt like an eternity. The flint slipped twice. His hands shook.

The third spark caught a handful of dry straw. He bent over it, blowing gently. A small flame appeared. Then another. He fed it splinters of wood.

The fire grew.

"Éloïse!"

The soldier looked toward him.

"Throw it!"

Torsten seized a burning branch. He hesitated. The slime was moving between the columns. Pascal had retreated toward the opposite wall. Mauro stood beside his wife, holding a length of broken timber.

Florentine lay near Sabine, who was examining her foot. Torsten calculated the distance. He had never been particularly good at throwing. He had spent most of his adult life reading. Reading had seemed a respectable occupation until approximately ten minutes ago.

"Throw it!" Éloïse shouted again.

He did. The branch struck the slime. The creature recoiled. A portion of its surface blackened. A thick, foul-smelling vapor rose into the air.

Torsten stared. It was burning. Not quickly. Not easily. But unmistakably.

"More!" he shouted.

Mauro seized another branch. Pascal recovered his knife. Éloïse drew a second blade from her belt. Together they advanced. The slime contracted.

Its body trembled. Then it surged toward the nearest opening.

"Don't let it escape!" Mauro shouted.

Éloïse grabbed his arm.

"Let it go!"

"But!"

"Do you want to chase it into the dark?"

Mauro stopped. The creature slid between the columns and disappeared into the street. For several seconds, nobody moved. Then the sound of its retreat faded. Silence settled over the arcade.

The laughter sounded almost broken, forced out of a chest that had spent too long holding its breath. He looked at the flame as though it were both proof of his success and an accusation. Torsten looked down at the burning branch in his hand. He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh.

It was the laughter of a man who had discovered, quite suddenly, that the world was considerably more hostile than his books had suggested. Sabine examined Florentine's foot by lantern light.

The healer held the lamp low, turning the injured sole toward its glow. Her dark curls cast moving shadows over the bandages, and her expression tightened at the depth of the puncture. The wound was deep. Blood continued to seep from the puncture, and the surrounding tissue had already begun to swell.

"How long ago did you step on the nail?"

Florentine stared at her before speaking.

"Just now."

"Right."

Sabine looked exhausted before speaking.

"Sorry."

She poured water over the wound. Florentine cried out.

"Hold still."

"It hurts!"

"I know."

"No, you don't."

Sabine looked up. For a moment, something hard appeared in her expression. Then it vanished.

"You're right," she said. "I don't."

She continued cleaning. Florentine gripped the edge of the stone bench. Her breasts were bruised, and the skin across her chest had been scraped raw. The injury was not severe enough to threaten her life, but every movement reminded her of it. Sabine examined the abrasions, breaking the silence.

"Do you have anything to cover these?"

Florentine shook her head before speaking.

"I… I don't wear clothing."

"I noticed."

"It's religious."

"I understand."

"No, you don't."

Sabine paused. Florentine looked away before speaking.

"I'm sorry."

Sabine resumed her work.

"I don't need to understand your religion to understand that you're injured."

She cleaned the wounds as gently as she could. Florentine's skin was cold beneath her hands. Goosebumps covered her arms, abdomen, and thighs. The healer frowned.

"You're freezing."

"I'm always cold at night."

"That can't be healthy."

Florentine gave a weak smile.

"Most of my faith isn't particularly concerned with comfort."

Sabine looked at her before answering.

"Does your faith allow you to die of an infected foot?"

Florentine hesitated.

"No."

"Good. Then let me work."

Sabine’s hands moved carefully despite their fatigue. Every time the bandage touched the torn flesh, Florentine’s jaw tightened, but she refused to pull away. She wrapped the puncture wound with clean bandages. Florentine watched before speaking.

"Thank you."

Sabine nodded, breaking the silence.

"Try not to put weight on it."

Florentine glanced toward the dark street before speaking.

"That may be difficult."

"I know."

Matilda

Matilda sat beside Mauro. Their shoulders touched, but the contact did not carry the ease it once had. Between them lay all the words spoken on the quay and all the things neither had managed to say since. Neither had spoken much since the attack. Mauro's hands were trembling. He had blood on his sleeve, though she could not tell whether it belonged to him.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

He shook his head. She examined his face. The swelling from the sailor's blow had worsened. A purple bruise spread beneath his left eye. She reached toward it.

He flinched. Matilda withdrew her hand.

"I'm sorry."

Mauro looked at her before answering.

"For what?"

She did not know how to answer. For the voyage. For the captain. For the things she had said at the harbor. For the fact that she had begun to resent her husband because he had witnessed her humiliation and survived it without being able to stop it.

For the terrible thought that sometimes entered her mind when she looked at him: that he had been spared something she had been forced to endure. She hated herself for that thought. She knew he had suffered. She knew he had been powerless. But knowledge did not always silence resentment.

Mauro took her hand.

"We're alive."

Matilda nodded.

"Yes."

"We made it."

She looked toward the darkness beyond the arcade. A few minutes earlier, she had watched a creature carrying human bones inside its body attempt to devour them. They had driven it away with fire. Barely. She wondered how many such creatures existed.

She wondered how many nights they would have to survive before reaching the Chalice. She wondered whether their son would recognize them if they succeeded. Mauro squeezed her hand.

"We'll find him."

Matilda closed her eyes. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe so badly that it hurt.

Pascal

Pascal sat apart from the others. He chose a place from which he could see the entrance and the sleeping faces alike. In the wavering firelight, his ordinary, almost amiable features gave nothing away.

His shoulder ached. A bruise was forming beneath his coat. He examined the knife he had recovered from the stones. The blade was stained with green residue. He wiped it carefully.

Across the arcade, the soldier was speaking with the scholar. The healer tended the naked druid. The Regalian couple sat together beside the fire. Pascal kept his hands where the others could see them. It was a simple courtesy, and like many simple courtesies, it cost him nothing while purchasing a surprising amount of trust, then watched them.

He had learned several things. Éloïse was dangerous. Torsten was intelligent but inexperienced. Sabine was compassionate. Florentine was stubborn.

Mauro was protective. Matilda was vulnerable. He found himself particularly interested in Matilda. She had the expression of someone who had endured something terrible and was attempting to behave as though it had not happened. Pascal recognized that expression.

He had seen it on the faces of people who survived his attacks. The memory stirred something familiar. He imagined approaching her while Mauro slept. He imagined placing one hand over her mouth. He imagined the moment her eyes opened and she understood that the danger had never really passed.

His fingers tightened around the knife. Then he looked toward Éloïse. The soldier was watching him. Pascal smiled. She did not smile back.

Interesting, he returned the knife to its sheath. There would be time. The Tower was enormous. Its corridors were dark.

People disappeared here every day. And nobody knew who he was. Éloïse waited until the others had settled before approaching Pascal. She walked without haste, placing each boot carefully on the uneven stone. Her tiredness was real, but she refused to let it soften the scrutiny with which she regarded the stranger. He looked up.

"Soldier."

"Éloïse,” she corrected him.

"Éloïse."

She studied him.

"You handled yourself well."

"Thank you."

"Where did you learn to use a knife?"

Pascal shrugged.

"Life."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

Éloïse folded her arms, breaking the silence.

"You're not military."

"No."

"Mercenary?"

"No."

"Bandit?"

He smiled.

"Would I tell you if I were?"

She did not answer. Pascal tilted his head.

"You're suspicious."

"Yes."

"Of everyone?"

"Mostly."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It keeps me alive."

He glanced toward the street. The fire cast an orange seam along the soldier’s cheek. Whatever she had decided about him, she kept it behind a face disciplined into stillness.

"Apparently."

Éloïse watched him for another moment. Then she turned away.

"Get some sleep. I'll take the first watch."

Pascal nodded before speaking.

"Very kind."

She stopped.

"One more thing."

"Yes?"

"If you do anything to endanger this group, I'll kill you."

Pascal looked at her. For a moment, his expression changed. The smile disappeared. Something colder emerged beneath it. Then he laughed softly.

"Understood."

Éloïse walked away. Pascal watched her go. He had been threatened before. By soldiers, by magistrates, by men who believed themselves capable of violence. Most of them had been wrong, but Éloïse, he considered her carefully. She might actually be capable of following through.

That made her interesting. And dangerous. He would have to be patient. The fire burned low. Embers opened and closed beneath a skin of ash. The night air moved through the arcade in shallow currents, carrying the distant scrape of something that might have been a cart or might have been alive.

Florentine slept fitfully, her injured foot resting on a folded bundle of cloth. Sabine had given her a blanket to lie upon, though Florentine refused to wrap herself in it. Torsten sat beside the flames, staring into them. Mauro held Matilda close. Pascal lay with his back against a column, his eyes apparently closed. Éloïse stood watch.

Beyond the arcade, the Tower stretched into darkness. Somewhere in its depths, enormous creatures moved through ruined corridors. Somewhere above them, a Chalice waited. Or perhaps it did not. Éloïse had stopped believing in easy answers long ago.

She looked toward the sleeping travelers. A Regalian couple. A northern scholar. A healer. A naked druid.

A stranger with a knife. And herself. Seven people. Seven reasons to enter the Tower. Seven opportunities for everything to go wrong.

She tightened her grip on her sword. Then she heard something moving beyond the columns. A wet, dragging sound. Éloïse closed her eyes.

"Of course."

The sound came again. Closer. She looked toward the fire. Beyond the firelight, the ruined passages seemed to deepen rather than disappear. Each time a coal collapsed, the darkness moved a little closer. There was barely enough wood left for another hour.

And the night had only begun.