The Greatest Sin

Arascus snapped his fingers and tried to incinerate the piece of paper before him. Not even a spark of magic, not even an inkling of heat. He shook his head and threw it to the waste-bin. Iliyal had chosen good candidates, of course he would, but the man was obviously being cautious.

Whoever was going to be sent to Arcadia to bring back the sorcerers would have to know about them, so whoever was sent would be an exposure risk. It was better to choose someone reliable than someone untested.
Arascus thought of a name for the task: Sara Daganhoff.

“That’s not…” A Seeker next to Elijah tried forcing some words out to break the shock they were in. A blast of thunder from overhead shook the team of Seekers awake. Golden armour started to move, capes began to flow in the wind and they finally started to run as was hours of training kicked in instinctually.

As instinctually as could be done for a group of men untested in battle.

Elijah lifted his spear, pointed it at the moving hand and felt Allasaria’s power flow through the spear. The bright tip started to glow, from a weak candle barely being able to hold back the darkness to a lamppost, cutting a giant swathe of the night away. Raindrops began to bubbling, then crackle and evaporate as the spear worked its enchanted magic until the tip of the weapon was dry; water simply evaporated before it even managed to think of touching the spear.

For a brief instant, night fled from around Elijah. A beam of light burst forth from the spear and incinerated that large hand trying to dig its way out of the ground. Silence descended on the men once again, Elijah had to rally his men. He turned, made his voice hard, tried to push away any hint of cowardice away. “FORM RANKS! ORDER! THE LIGHT GUIDES US!” He lifted his spear and fired off another beam into the sky. That finally got their attention. “ORDER! FORM RANKS!”

He pushed the panic away from himself and thought quickly. His untested and untried tactical theory started to return: men had to be kept busy, idle hands made for idle minds, idle minds gave birth to fear and fear lead to panic. He barked out one order after another. Ten men were to stay here and watch the ground, added to the four who were already waiting out here, ten more to patrol the corridor, fifteen to return to the throne and guard Atis, five would take him to Beniamin. “We are Seekers! The dark fears US!” He finished off with a shout and got a shout in return. “I don’t know what is trying to climb out of the ground, you just saw me kill it! They can be stopped!”

Another series of shouts gave him a reply. “YES HIGH SEEKER!”

Elijah’s heart almost skipped a beat upon the sight, and then the men started to run off to their assigned jobs. Good. He himself set off down the battered corridors with the five men, the one who had mentioned Beniamin, Nathanael, initially lead them up a flight of ruined stairs, every second step was blown out and half of those remaining were overran with cracks. The walls here were in much a similar state, the sides devastated and smattered with cuts from blades. “It’s this corridor.” Nathanael said and pointed down the hallway. “That was amazing High Seeker, but that hand, what do you think it was?”

“I have no clue.” Elijah said, a moment later he realised it was a bad answer. “But I have a feeling we’ll be returning here with more men. Maybe the Goddess herself will get involved.”

“Do you think so?” One of the other Seekers asked. “With the situation in the Pantheon?”

“We saw a…” Elijah’s mind reached the conclusion of the thought before his mouth did. What did they see? A body trying to dig itself out of the ground? That was called an undead, a foul being of a captured soul chained to its body through cursed necromancy. The last time they were seen on Arda was during the Great War, when Arascus used them to bolster his armies.

Those would be exactly the sort of words that inspired panic. Elijah changed the conversation. “Nevermind, we’ll discuss it tomorrow. What happened to Beniamin?”

“We found him, he was just…” Nathanael began, his voice suddenly wary. “He was cold, but he was moving, breathing, but he felt…” The man took a heavy breath. “His body had the temperature of a corpse and he wasn’t responsive. Other Nat and Ertrand stayed to watch over it and then I ran to get to you.”

“And it’s here?”

“Just the next do-“ Nathanael turned into a doorway and stopped, his face going pale and his brown pupils expanding to almost fill the entire eye.

“What ha…” Elijah’s voice trailed off as he leaned into the doorway. There was no point asking the question in the first place. The room was small, with the single entrance, some furniture, a waterskin that had been spilled over the floor. It was damaged of course.

Beniamin was sitting in the corner as if his body had been dropped from the sky. His brown eyes were open and unfocused, they started straight ahead, totally ignorant of the team of six suddenly entering the room. Next to the doorway, lay the two other men. The exact same state were inflicted upon them. They sat in their golden armour, without so much as a blemish upon their faces. “I don’t know.” Nathanael finally answered.

Elijah sidestepped Nathanael and leaned down to walk to Beniamin. He took off the man’s helm and touched his cheek. It was as cold as a stone. He touched the man’s neck. There was no pulse.

Why was he breathing? “Sir, what do we…?” The rest of the team had slowly filtered into the room. There wasn’t so much as a drop of cheer among them.

“Bring them back to the throne room.” Elijah said immediately. He did it without thinking. What would the throne room help them with? They didn’t bring healers with them. He just wanted to have a task to take them off it. “Wait!” But then bringing them back would cause panic. There wasn’t anyone who could deal with them. Maybe it was better to just leave them here.

Elijah stood there and thought as the men started inspecting the three bodies themselves. Were they even corpses? Elijah stood there and thought as one of them men leaned down. They breathed like men. Elijah stood there and thought as the men the two others had their helmets removed. But why were they cold then? Elijah stood there and stopped thinking when a corpse moved.

One of the cold men by the side of the door suddenly lurched forwards. His hand shot forwards like an arrow. The surprise and speed, Elijah would have not dodged it himself. Its fingers wrapped underneath the Seeker’s helmet, around his neck.

There was a crack.

The Seeker dropped to the ground, his body having one final convulsion before his spear left his hand.

Elijah’s training kicked in instantly. He hefted his spear and swiped it across the room. Bright light burst from it and cut the corpse in half. The other two, Beniamin included, were dealt with in the same way. There was no reason to take chances. The part of six had shrunk to five, and they all stared at the cauterized wounds of corpses split in two and the one Seeker who had his neck broken.

Did they stand for a minute? An hour? It felt like an eternity, as if that small room of the ruined fort had transformed into a prison cage; it couldn’t have been longer than a few seconds. Nathanael broke them out of their stunned silence. “What do we do now?”

Elijah opened his mouth to answer and was interrupted.

Screams.

From below.

The sentries.