When we reached the bottom floor, Kull led me through a maze of hallways until we stopped at a door set under a deep alcove.
As I faced the door, I felt a spell in the rusted metal panels, but it didn’t feel like an ordinary ward meant to keep us out. Still, the magic felt powerful as it pushed against my own powers.
“The entrance to the tombs is through here,” he said. “Do you sense any magic?”
“Yes, but I don’t think it’s meant to keep us out. We should be safe to enter.”
He nodded, then carefully opened the door and led me into a cavern with rough stone floors and a domed ceiling made of the same stone. Natural pillars resembling stalagmites grew from the floors and connected with the ceiling in some places.
An eerie purple glow came from the room. Oval-shaped, bauble-like pods, as tall as a person, protruded from the walls, casting the purplish glow. We circled the enormous space until we reached one of the pods.
Gasping, I drew back at what I saw encased in the stone.
The tall glass bubble was filled with gray fluid. Inside the liquid, I spotted a humanoid figure that was little more than a skeleton. Bits of skin and muscle still clung to the bones in places. Its skull had one eye, though it was covered in film, and only a faint gleam of red shone through the milky surface. The lips were peeled back completely, revealing a set of carnivorous teeth.
Chills bristled my skin as I studied the figure. This felt wrong. I couldn’t understand why that person was trapped in there—or even if this was a person—but I knew this was wholly unnatural.
I took a step closer and the figure looked up, focusing its eye on me. Fear made my heart race, but I couldn’t look away.
“Is it… alive?” I asked.
The form moved closer and placed a hand on the bubble’s inner shell. I drew in a sharp breath, and I couldn’t seem to move from where I stood.
With its hand pressed to the glass, I noticed that the person still had a fingertip attached to its index finger. The skin was white and bloated, barely clinging to the bone, like one last remaining shred of humanity.
“Yes, they’re alive,” Kull said behind me.
I turned around. “They?”
He nodded. “Look over here.” He led me away from the pod. We rounded a corner and saw a depression in the floor that led to a gaping hole. As we stood on the edge, we saw the bubble shapes glowing dimly beneath us, encased in the stone, just like the one behind us, stretching for miles beneath us.
Humanoid forms floated in their prisons, some peering up at us through glassy eyes. A few forms were still shockingly human-looking with skin and hair, and some with clothing.
“Kull,” I said, my heart racing. “What’s going on here?”
“My best guess is that they’re trying to preserve their population. They said millions died after Theht left. They’re desperate to survive. They must’ve found a way to preserve life in some form.”
“But are they actually alive?”
“I can’t say for sure. It seems they’re somewhat cognizant, but do they retain their memories from their lives before this happened? I don’t know.”
I stared below at the ghost-like shapes floating in the liquid. “It’s sickening.”
“I agree, but there’s more. Follow me.” He led me away from the hole and into another area of the cave. Rows of flat, rectangular tables were arranged throughout the space. Buckets, knives, chisels, and small hammers rested on the floors or hung on the walls.
The pervading scent of death lingered the air.
“What’s happening here?” I asked Kull.
Kull paused before answering. “I have a theory.” His voice was hushed, haunted.
“What’s your theory?”
“You really want to know? I’ll warn you, it’s troubling.”
“Kull, I need to know what’s going on down here.”
“Very well. We know that the people of this world do not define death the same way we define it. I suspect their lives are much longer than ours, and only an act of extreme violence can kill them completely. Those who die don’t simply cease to exist as we do, their bodies laid to rest, their souls passing to another existence. Instead, I believe their souls do not move on at all. They stay here, on this world, clinging to what remains of their bodies.”
I met his gaze, feeling increasingly alarmed at where this conversation was going. “They stay here?”
“Yes, their bodies die, but their souls stay, and they become the Regaymor.”
“Regaymor?”
He nodded.
“If that’s so, then why aren’t these people Regaymor?”
Kull nodded at the rows of tables. “Because they’ve found a way to keep them from changing. When I found this place earlier, I watched a body being moved down here. They removed all the vital organs, and then they trapped the body inside one of those tombs in the wall. The bodies decay slowly, and they remain somewhat cognizant, though they most likely don’t remember their former lives. They are ghosts, trapped in between life and death.”
“You’re sure about all this?”
“I’m not positive, but I’ve given it a fair amount of thought since discovering these tombs, and it seems the logical conclusion. Jeven’s people are frightened of the Regaymor above anything else. The only safe haven left on the planet is within the city, and it is because they’ve discovered how to keep their people from transforming after death.”
“I agree. It seems the most logical conclusion.” After a pause as I looked at the buckets sitting alongside the tables, I asked, “Kull, what do you think they do with the internal organs?”
He cleared his throat. “There are no farms in the city, Olive. Nowhere to grow food. I saw no ranches or livestock.”
“They’re cannibals, aren’t they?”
He nodded.
I clamped my hand over
