Highwater and Glass

The Mourning Mist, Chapter 6 - Eloise

Eloise's Aunt Clarella was a morticant; a sacred mortician charged with embalming the bodies of honored civilians. She performed her duties in the hall of the dead beneath the divine sanctuaries of Hedgemont. When Eloise was young (perhaps too young) she was permitted to visit her aunt in the hall.

She remembered the air becoming cooler as she walked down the stairs below the earth. She recalled the dim firelight and the smell of oils, thyme, lavender, peppermint, almond, and cedar. But they didn't smell the same. There was another fragrance that no perfume in the world could mask. It was death. Death had a scent.

And as she turned the corner beneath the black arched doorway at the base of the stairs, she found her Aunt Clarella. She was standing at the base of a cold stone slab. The body on the slab was cut open from neck to navel and its ribs were held open with a large clamp. Clarella's hands were wet with blood as she lowered a human heart into a ceramic jar. In her child's mind, Clarella was no longer her aunt; she was a monster. Eloise would eventually overcome her fear, but she would never rid herself of the imagery.

The seventeen corpses of Green Marsh villagers had stirred this memory in Eloise. She nearly had to wade through them to exit the previous room. She could compartmentalize the horror, but she could never unsee it.

She was following Oran and Sir Tristane through a dark hallway, the glow of the glyphs and the Archmage's magic fading behind them. It felt counter-intuitive to leave behind Horus and the Archmage when the power they could wield was so evidently displayed. What good was steel against the angry spirit of an undead necromancer? Sir Tristane certainly appeared confident. But he would carry his bravado to the grave with him, Eloise was sure of that.

She was thankful for the companionship of Oran, however. At the very least, she believed he would treat her as an equal in the face of whatever they encountered within the ruin, and not as an expendable tool.

"Some light, apprentice," said Tristane, not bothering to learn Oran's name.

"Of course, Tristane," replied Oran, "Although I do sense light ahead around the corner. I'd hate to generate anything that casts a conflicting shadow or forewarns an enemy."

"Light," Tristane repeated.

And Oran did as he was told. He exhaled, breath that didn't seem to come from within, but from somewhere else. Small light formed at his fingertips. Eloise was enamored, but found at once that she wished Tristane had heeded Oran's advice. The light was glary and, in some ways, made it harder to see than before.

The hallway made a hard right turn and narrowed. Or, rather, Eloise felt like the hallway narrowed. Between the harsh light reflecting off dripping stone walls, the stark darkness and shadows, the echoing footsteps, and the sound of her own breathing, Eloise felt as though her imagination could get the best of her. In the distance, she heard songs in the howling wind and the whisper of rushing water. She wondered if the necromancer Caona would want for her soul as well.

She wasn't exactly sure what happened next, only that she heard something snap and Tristane curse before a loud whoosh and a mechanical sound. A tremendous log descended from the ceiling and swung towards them.

"Shika Na!" Oran shouted.

A translucent blue shield formed in front of Oran and Eloise. Tristane was too far ahead of them. He let out a gutteral yell as he took the full brunt of the log to his chest. It smashed him against Oran's barrier with such force, Tristane's plate armor warped into another shape. The log ricocheted away and Tristane slumped to the ground. The log creaked as it rocked back to stillness.

Eloise felt helpless. Tristane, for all his cruelties, deserved better than to be struck down by some ancient trap. She recalled him saying to her once that he wished to be slain in battle by a superior combatant, if not quietly in his bed with his favorite nephew at his side.