The map was less a precise chart and more a collection of suggestive symbols and lines etched onto the stiff hide. A cluster of jagged peaks was crudely drawn, with one, taller and more broken-looking than the others, marked with a small, intricate spiral. There were no paths indicated, only a general direction relative to what Uday assumed was the Corpse Mountain, now a distant, hazy silhouette behind him.
He walked. The ash still puffed around his ankles, the wind still whispered its mournful secrets, and the chorus within him remained a constant, roiling companion. Kaelen's disapproval had settled into a grim silence, a palpable weight. Lyra offered occasional, quiet words of encouragement, or perhaps just observations about the subtle shifts in the desolate landscape.
The earth here feels… older, Uday. More scarred. As if great fires once scoured it clean.
Vairagya's voice, when it surfaced, was as bleak as ever. All earth is scarred by time. All fires eventually cool. Your efforts are but a fleeting warmth in an endless winter.
Uday tried to focus on the task at hand, on the crude map and the direction Ratta had indicated. The orange glow of Badarika was now to his left, a constant, distant reminder of the path he had momentarily diverted from. This new direction felt like a step into even deeper unknown. Ratta's warning about "echoes" and "memories with claws" did little to soothe his apprehension.
The terrain began to change subtly. The endless, soft ash gave way to harder, cracked earth, interspersed with patches of blackened, glass-like rock – the obsidian formations Ratta had mentioned. They rose from the plains like the teeth of some long-dead behemoth, sharp and forbidding. The air here felt different too, colder, with a faint, metallic tang that Uday couldn't place.
He found the cluster of formations without too much difficulty, their dark silhouettes stark against the bruised sky. And there, as Ratta had described, was the watchtower – or what remained of it. It was a jagged spire of crumbling black stone, indeed looking like a broken tooth, its upper sections lost to time or violence. It seemed to lean precariously, as if the next strong gust of wind might send it toppling.
There was no obvious entrance at its base, only a jumble of fallen masonry and a narrow, shadowed crevice that might, with some effort, allow passage.
"This place stinks of old death and forgotten magic," Kaelen's voice rumbled, breaking his long silence. There was a new note in it – not just disapproval, but a warrior's caution. "Strong magic. And not the clean fire of Devas, nor the raw corruption of Asuras. Something else. Something… watchful."
The echoes Ratta spoke of? Lyra wondered, her voice hushed. Be wary, Uday. Places that have witnessed great conflict or intense emotion can retain a psychic imprint, a memory that can lash out at the unwary.
Uday felt a prickle of unease. He was no warrior, no scholar of magic. He was just… Uday. A vessel. But the thought of turning back, of facing Ratta empty-handed and thus forfeiting the promised knowledge of Elara and Badarika, was equally unpalatable.
He approached the crevice. It was dark within, and a faint, cool draft emanated from it, carrying a scent he couldn't quite identify – something ancient, like dust and dried herbs, but with an undercurrent of something else, something that made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
"I have to go in," Uday said, as much to himself as to the voices.
"Then go with your eyes open and your fists ready," Kaelen advised, his tone all soldier now. "Assume everything in there wants to kill you. It is usually a safe assumption in this age."
Uday took one last look at the desolate plains, then squeezed into the narrow opening.
The passage was tight, the black stone cold and rough against his tattered clothing. It smelled of damp earth, ancient dust, and that unidentifiable, unsettling undertone – a faint, almost sweet decay, like overripe fruit left too long in the dark. The light from the bruised sky outside quickly faded, plunging him into near total blackness. For a moment, panic threatened to overwhelm him, the primal fear of enclosed spaces amplified by the chorus of voices, some of which shrieked with remembered terrors of being buried alive, of suffocating in collapsed ruins.
Breathe, Uday, Lyra's voice was a calming presence, a small point of light in the oppressive dark. Focus on the air. There is a draft. It leads somewhere.
He forced himself to take slow, measured breaths, the foul air a poor substitute for true sustenance but a reminder that he was, for now, still moving, still existing. He shuffled forward, one hand trailing along the rough wall for guidance, the other held out before him. The ground was uneven, littered with loose stones and what felt like more bones, smaller this time, perhaps animal, or perhaps… something else.
The passage twisted, then opened slightly. A faint luminescence ahead offered a sliver of hope. It wasn't the orange glow of Badarika, nor the bruised twilight of the plains, but a pale, ethereal blue, flickering like a dying flame.
As he emerged from the narrow passage, he found himself in a circular chamber, the base of the watchtower. The blue light emanated from strange, phosphorescent fungi clinging to the damp stone walls, casting long, dancing shadows that made the familiar shapes of fallen rubble seem like lurking beasts. The air here was heavy, still, and cold, the silence profound after the constant howl of the wind outside. So profound, in fact, that the internal chorus in his head seemed to roar louder in the vacuum.
In the center of the chamber, a crumbling stone staircase spiraled upwards into the darkness, its steps cracked and missing in places. This was clearly the way to the "highest chamber" Ratta had spoken of.
"The magic Kaelen sensed is stronger here," the general's voice was a low rumble, tinged with unease. "This place was not merely a watchtower. It was a site of… ritual. Of power. Be on your guard. The echoes here will be potent."
And sorrowful, Lyra added softly. I feel… a great weight of despair imprinted on these stones, Uday. The memories here… they will not be kind.
Vairagya, predictably, offered, Decay. All things decay. Stone, magic, memory. Your trinket will be dust, like all else.
Uday ignored the nihilist. He looked at the stairs. They seemed to ascend into an infinite blackness. The thought of climbing them, into the unknown heart of this ruined, magic-soaked tower, filled him with a mixture of dread and a grim determination. He had come this far. He had made a bargain.
He placed a foot on the first step. It held. He took another. The stone was cold beneath his worn soles, and slick with a faint film of moisture. The blue fungal light cast his shadow long and distorted on the curving wall as he began to ascend. The journey upwards was a disquieting symphony of groaning stone and the insistent, sorrowful whispers of the tower's past. The higher Uday climbed, the more potent the "echoes" became. Flashes of imagery, sharper and more coherent than before, assaulted his mind: a stern-faced mage in dark robes, chanting before a crackling brazier; a desperate prisoner scratching symbols onto the wall with a broken fingernail; the glint of steel in the gloom, followed by a choked cry. These were not his memories, yet they carried the weight of lived experience, threatening to overwhelm his own fragile sense of self. He found himself flinching from phantom blows, his breath catching on sobs that belonged to others.
They are strong here, Lyra's voice was a strained whisper. The tower holds its pain tightly. Try to shield your mind, Uday. Focus on your own breath, on the feel of the stone beneath your hand.
"Do not let them break you, Uday!" Kaelen's voice was a harsh bark, trying to cut through the rising tide of empathic suffering. "These are the fears of the dead. They are not yours. You are the Vessel, not their victim!"
But Udaywas their victim, in a way. Their pain was his pain. Their fear, his fear. He stumbled, catching himself on the wall, his head swimming with the sensory overload. The locket pressed against his chest felt like his only anchor to his own nascent identity.
The blue fungal light from below had long since faded, replaced by an oppressive darkness that the occasional sliver of bruised twilight, filtering through arrow slits high above, did little to dispel. The air grew colder, carrying the sharp, metallic tang of ozone Kaelen had mentioned earlier.
Then, a new light bloomed ahead, not the ethereal blue, but a sickly, pulsating green. It spilled from a narrow, arched doorway set into the curving wall, a clear deviation from the main spiral of the staircase. And with the light came a sound – a chorus of faint, wet chitterings and soft, gurgling noises that made Uday's skin crawl.
"Hold," Kaelen commanded, his voice a low growl. "That is not the highest chamber. Ratta spoke of the peak. This is… something else. Something that feels… unholy."
Unholy. The word, and the familiar, nauseating scent that now wafted from the green-lit archway – like rotting fruit and something else, something acrid and wrong – sent a jolt of the Resentment's fury, mixed with a primal revulsion, through Uday.
Be cautious, Uday, Lyra urged, her voice tight with apprehension. That light… it feels like the Unholy Corruption itself. It is a lure, perhaps, or a nest of its foul spawn.
Uday hesitated at the doorway. The main staircase continued its dark ascent beyond this opening, presumably towards Ratta's trinket. But this green-lit chamber… it felt like a wound in the side of the ancient tower, a festering infection that pulsed with a life all its own.
He was Uday. Named for a new dawn. He thought of the first carrion eater, the one he had spared. That had been a choice, a small act of defiance against the brutality of this age. He looked at the green light, at the source of so much suffering in the world, now seemingly concentrated here. Could he simply walk past it, focused only on his bargain with Ratta?
A sense of duty, perhaps born from Lyra's quiet influence, or perhaps from the countless souls within him who had suffered under the Unholy Corruption, warred with Kaelen's pragmatic advice to stick to the mission.
With a deep, shuddering breath that did little to calm the thumping in his chest, Uday made his decision. The trinket could wait. This… this he had to see.
"I need to know," he whispered, the words almost a prayer.
He stepped towards the green-lit archway, leaving the spiraling darkness of the main staircase behind, for now.