#Inktober2019 - Day 07, 'Enchanted'

As originally posted at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854958/chapters/49573574

The cavern stinks of mould and faith.

In truth, the journey feels more like a swim than a walk, so heavy and humid is the air which clings to us, as wet as the clothes now stuck to our skin. Between the dampness of each breath and the shimmering mist which sucks the light from the burning torches at two of my three companions’ shoulders, I can already feel the warm embrace of the ocean which awaits us.

You wouldn’t understand, of course.

Your lack of faith makes you blind.

It’s a feeling, more than anything, which guides me. Down here, the ocean swallows the light with ease, and those who depend on the light in their hands would find themselves lost amidst the labyrinthe even before their torches ran dry, just so surely as those who listen to the sirens’ call would stray away from the true path to their doom.

The man to my left hears her now, her singing entrancing, mournful. He was lost to us even before his first step into this sacred barrow. I don’t bother to turn to him as I feel him slow his pace, hear the longing in his voice.

“I think we’re going the wrong way.”

“What makes you think that?”

The second voice is nervous, uncertain. She won’t follow him when he leaves, for although she is not a believer she wishes she were, and so she will follow my faith in hopes of sharing it. Once, when I was lesser, baser, I would have considered her beautiful, perhaps even taken advantage of her need to believe. But now, even knowing her fate isn’t enough to spur me to pity.

The first hesitates, stops. He hears the call, I know this as clearly as if I saw it with my own, unmasked eyes. I don’t stop for courtesy as he falters, torn between knowing that he is about to fail, and the desire to embrace it. When he speaks, his voice is defeated, resigned, the murmur of a man already dead. “He doesn’t know where he’s going, he’s blindfolded, for pity’s sake! It’s this way, I’m sure.”

I don’t stop, and though my companions hesitate, ultimately they turn and begin to follow, abandoning the other to his fate. His name is already forgotten, useless now that I have seen him for the last time.

Down we descend, along rocks growing slicker with slime and algae. The siren calls recede as surely as the first’s panicked cries as he grows lost, no longer able to find his way outward or inward. Here, the caverns begin to widen, growing broader and taller. Oysters and anemones crowd the walls, the eyes of this place following the intruder’s flame so surely as any body tracks an invader.

When the first beasts begin to scuttle around us, shells and scales and teeth, I sense the second companion begin to falter and almost feel disappointment. I don’t need to remove the veil from my eyes to see her fate, for I have seen it already. Though I and the other fourth are to pass unharmed, the light in the third’s hand is a transgression which this place will not abide.

The slithering of this place’s inhabitants does nothing to bother me as they slide across my toes, finding no weakness in me or the fourth. The third is not so lucky; as we reach one bend, she screams at the brush of venomed sacs across her hands, sobbing and shrieking as her torch falls aside, extinguished in an instant amidst the stink of roasting shellfish. Ahead of us, glowing softly in the darkness, a single, yellow orb hangs from the wall, like the moon on a starless night. It’s too dark for the third to see us as she stumbles toward it in panic, trying to calm herself long enough to catch her breath and spot us.

Her cry is cut off as suddenly as it begins when the invisible jaws close upon her, and too late she learns that desire is no substitute for true belief.

Just two left now, I and the fourth. There’s no more risk of getting lost, for though we’re both blind beneath our masks, we follow the call of the salt in our blood. I know her thoughts as surely as she knows mine, for we both arrived wreathed in the garb of the visions. We both know that to enter this place is to be a worm hooked and lowered into the depths, powerless to do anything as we sink deeper and deeper.

But we are not bait.

We are an offering.

And if the the ocean accepts that offering, it will bestow its gift in return.

As we enter the room and part ways, we say nothing. It’s not merely that we know the futility of the gesture, though to wish luck upon another when only one of us will leave this chamber is plainly self-defeating. No, it’s that down here, shapeless, eyeless things stalk the shadows. To make a sound is to gain their attention, and to gain their attention?

Well, even the faithless aren’t so blind they can’t see the answer to that.

My feet are silent as they touch the floor, padded with care and patience over the course of days to deaden my footfall in this place. I step slowly, knowing that to move quickly matters little when to make contact with one of the ancients is to bring instant death regardless of speed. All around, the chamber is silent, the air rich and thick and oppressive, a soup of musty smells and condensation. Comforting, to the children of the ocean, yet I resist the need to fill my lungs.

Ah.

I can’t tell which direction the sound comes from, the faintest scrap of fabric on stone. It doesn’t matter; it is enough. To her credit, the other makes no sound as she is consumed, her death a few moments of flesh and bone ripped and snapped. Sometimes, even faith is not enough, and I admire her courage in becoming a willing offering.

As I step into the final chamber, I reach up, remove the headband. Dark hair spills around my face as I let the hoodfall away, stepping into the glow without regret. Beneath another glowing light, a single creature oozes, a dark shell beneath a blood-red spike. The final test comes now, a simple act of faith. I raise my hand above the spike, prepare to plunge it down and be reborn with the gift of the Gods. To leave behind the chains of mortal flesh and join the ranks of the Enchanted.

Go, heathens. Cling to your hovels, run from the waves which rise higher each year. Hold on to your purity, your obsession with the world-that-was. In your arrogance you have forgotten the lessons of the past, that even kings could not command the tide to turn back.

You will fight, and you will fail, and you will die.

But the Disciples will rise anew.