Before he couldeven scream a warning to his father, the creature had shoved a claw through hisfather's middle, the other claw wrapping around his throat. Kochen's sob caughtin his own throat, as his father descended into the ground in the embrace ofthe creature. The soil parted for him, and it was as if he had sunk into theriver instead of the farmland of the village.
Kochen climbedthe ladder, and reached the edge of the limestone landing. He sat on the edge,his feet safely on stone, watching and waiting for his father's hand to appearfrom the ground. It was a good harvest that year.
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The Abbey
By Jacy Morris
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THE ABBEY
Prologue
He would make him scream. So far they had allscreamed, their unused voices quaking and cracking with pain that was made evenworse by the fact that they were breaking their vows to their Lord, their solereason for existence. Shattering their vows was their last act on earth, andthen they were gone. Now there was only one left. A lone monk had taken flightinto the abbey's lower regions, a labyrinthine winding of corridors andcatacombs lined with the boxed up remains of the dead and their trinkets.
Brenley Denman's boots clanked off of the rough-hewn,blue stone as he trounced through the abbey's crypts, following the whiff ofsmoke from the monk's torch and the echo of his harried footsteps. His men werespread out through the underworks, funneling the monk ahead of them, drivinghim the way hounds drove a fox. The monk would lead them to his den, and thenthe prize would be theirs. And then the world.
He held his torch up high, watching the flamesglimmer off of golden urns and silver swords, ancient relics of a nobility thathad long since gone extinct, their glory only known by faded etchings in marblesarcophagi, the remaining glint of their once-prized possessions, and thespiders who built their webs in the darkness. Once they were done with the monk,they would take anything that glittered, but first they needed the talisman,the fabled bauble that resided at the bottom of the mountain the abbey wasbuilt on.
Throughout the land, legends of the talisman had beentold for decades around hearthfires and inns throughout the isles. Then thetellers had begun to vanish, until the talisman of Inchorgrath and its storieshad all but been forgotten. But Denman knew. He remembered the stories hisfather had told him while they sat around the fire of their stone house, builtless than ten yards from the cemetery. His father's knuckles were cracked anddried from hours in the elements digging graves and rifling pockets when no onewas looking. He knew secrets when he saw them. His father had first heard thestory from the old Celts, the remains of the land's indigenous population,reduced to poverty and begging in the streets. His father said the old Celts'stories were two-thirds bullshit and one-third truth. They told of a relic, akey to the Celts' uprising and reclamation of the land, buried in the deepestpart of the tallest mountain on the Isles. Of course, they spoke ofregeneration and the return of Gods among men as well, but the relic... thatwas the important part. That was the part that was worth money. And now, he washere, with his men, ready to make his fortune.
He heard shouts, but it was impossible to tell wherethey were coming from. Sound echoed and bounced off of the blue, quartzitestone blocks, warping reality. He chose the corridor to his right, quickeninghis pace, his long legs eating up the distance. His men knew not to startwithout him, but you never knew when a monk would lash out, going against theirdiscipline and training and earning a sword through the throat for theirduplicity. That would be unacceptable to Denman. The monk must scream before hedied.
His breathing quickened along with his pace, and hecould feel the warmth of anticipation spread through his limbs as his breathpuffed into the cold crypt air. Miles... they had come miles through thesecrypts, twisting and turning, burrowing into the secret heart of the earth,chasing the last monk who skittered through the hallways like a spider. Theother monks had all known the secret of the abbey, the power it harbored, therelic it hid in its bowels. To a man, they had sat on their knees, their robescollecting condensation in the green grass of the morning, refusing to divulgethe abbey's mysteries.
They had died, twisted, mangled and beaten. Butstill, all he could pull from them were the screams, musical expulsions of thethroat that he ended with a smile as he dragged the razor-fine edge of hisknife across their throats. Their blood had bubbled out, vivid against themorning sun, to splash on the grass.
When there was only one left, they had let him go.The youngest monk in the abbey, grown to manhood, but still soft about theface, his intelligent eyes filled with horror, stood and ran, his robe stainedwith the pooled blood of the monks that had died to his left and right. He waslike one of the homing pigeons they used in the lowlands, leading them tohome... to the relic. They had chased him, hooting and hollering the whole way,their voices and taunts driving the monk before them like a fox. The chasewould end at his burrow; it always did.
Ahead, he heard laughing, and with that Denman knewthat the chase was at an end. He rounded one last corner to see the monk beingworked over by his men, savage pieces of stupidity who were good for twothings, lifting heavy objects and killing people. Denman waved his hand andthey let the suffering monk go. The monk sagged to the ground,
