Page 21 of As Darkness Fall
That had me frowning. Not even a minor bit of return banter? Something was up with Vir.
We entered the temple of his brother, and Aaron paused, pointing out a set of two different footsteps on the ground. One was barefoot, and the other seemed to match Aaron’s boots.
“I walked back out in my own footsteps,” he explained, noting my curious look as I tried to figure it out.
“Oh. That makes sense,” I said, feeling kind of silly.
“In here,” he beckoned, not dwelling on it.
Neither did Vir. That had me feeling all sorts of uncomfortable in the situation. When neither of them was willing to poke fun at me, I couldn’t help but worry.
We entered a central chamber, much like in both Vir and Amunlea’s temples. Again, it looked like the worship area. The walls were covered in carvings, and it was easy to see that they all depicted death in one form or another. None of them were overly eye-pleasing, thanks to the detail that had been etched onto their surfaces.
Thankfully we didn’t pause there. The footsteps lead us to the rear of the chamber where, behind a raised half-wall, a staircase descended into the depths of the temple. I followed Aaron, with Vir bringing up the rear as we walked down the spiral into a darkness so complete even my wolf vision strained to see more than a few feet in front of me.
“Some light, please?” I asked Vir.
A moment later, a soft blue glow illuminated the immediate area, giving me plenty of light to see by.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Still didn’t get a response. Vir was very focused.
“This is so out there,” I said a few moments later.
“What is?” Aaron replied when Vir didn’t make so much as a peep.
“This place. How the hell did Lars have time to go exploringandfind it? I don’t get it. Nobody is that lucky.”
This time, neither Aaron nor Vir had a response. So we just kept walking. Another thirty stairs, and we arrived at the bottom, where a room opened up in front of us.
“What is this place?” I asked, shivering at the sensation that washed over me as I stepped off the stairs.
The ceiling was low and completely smooth, as were the walls. Lumps of stone dotted the room, almost chair-shaped. They had a base and a back to them, but as I looked closer, the ergonomics were all off for sitting.
But not for kneeling.
“Prayer stations,” Vir said quietly. “This is where the high acolytes of Irr would come to commune with my brother.”
“I see,” I said, looking over the stone construct. “What’s with the palm imprint?”
Glancing at several others, I saw the same thing. Each of the stations had the outline of a palm depressed into its surface, with a line that led down to the base, where there was a depression that then led off to the ground. I followed one of the lines and realized that the entire floor was full of them, all leading toward the rear of the chamber.
“If you wanted to communicate with Irr,” Vir said quietly. “You had to speak his language. Those are blood troughs.”
“Oh.” I looked around. There were two dozen prayer stations. All with carved lines leading back to an altar at the rear of the chamber. An altar that was not for a human but a device. The flat top had two pairs of spikes jutting up from it, separated by about a foot. As I stepped closer, I could see that the individual spikes had no more than two inches separating them.
“What was this for?” I asked. “Certainly not a human.”
“I’m not sure,” Aaron said. “But the footsteps lead straight to it.”
Part of me wanted to know how Aaron had managed to find his way down here in the complete and utter darkandtrack the footsteps, but Vir spoke before I could, and his answer sent chills down my spine.
“The Blade of Death,” he said quietly.
I shook my head. Well versed as I was in the ancient shifter gods, not much was known about Irr. Which I now found odd, given his position at the side of Amunlea, opposite Vir.
“I take it that this is some sort of relic of your brother’s?” I asked.
