35

  “Your greatest terror awaits you, oh soulless knight…” The whispers grew thicker with each step taken inside of the darkness. Each step a faraway echo underneath him. His blade grew colder, carrying the only reflecting light around him. Water dripped and rodents squeaked as the chamber walls were closing in on him. Omar kept his composure taking short breaths. “I will save the Pale. I will make it through this.”

  Each step drew the Whispering Mother’s chamber nearer. Adrenaline crept inside of Omar. The moment he waited for had come. The opportunity to raise the wards of Edindale were upon him.

  Omar nearly dropped from the short descent, where a slick stone staircase spawned under the darkness. Its stone slick with moisture, etched in ancient dark runes faintly glimmered with an ominous red light. Each rune flicker whispered to Omar warnings. A language of the ancients. The old Gaia native language.

  Omar’s onyx eyes barely pierced the forever darkness around him. Every breath seemed to shift them around. The darkness swallowed him, and he lived in its belly. The silence deafened, broken by his greaves crunching of the stone. The water dripped louder, but maybe blood? Omar wondered, keeping his sword close.

  Then a light peered at the end of the staircase, his goal. A white door in all the darkness, finally unveiled. Omar placed his hand on the light blue runes around it, immediately feeling a chill seep his body from a single touch. The door felt as if it was biting through Omar’s gauntlets. This place, filled nothing of malice, driving the minds of anyone into echoes of madman. Omar felt it all, the horrors on the other side of the door. The whispers grew louder. White wraiths toyed with him, launching a surprise screech behind him.

  “Turn back, monster. This place is the grave to your kind.” A wraith touched Omar’s shoulder, but he didn’t cower.

  Omar turned to the door steeling himself, by pushing the great white door. He groaned and tensed his muscles, as it slowly rubbed against the stone floor giving away. Light escaped behind the door. For in front of him arrived the center of the dungeon. The tomb of Gaia’s Whispering Mother. Where Elysium could have been found.

  “By the gods.” Omar whispered, his mind racing by the foresight of what lied before him, could only be described as legend.

  White flames activated all around chandeliers above rows of a small stadium. Thousands of skeletons lied at peace in their chairs, as the stone floor under him was unchiseled. It’s perfect. Everything in the tomb.

  The floor in front of him went on for another fifty yards to a goddess statue. A goddess with black fog draped around her like a blanket. Her eyes stared holes into Omar, with both her hands palmed together. Her mouth opened, seizing for silence amongst her crowd. Omar moved to the center of the tomb and the door locked him in.

  Silence became amidst. An obsidian throne in the back of the tomb held a coffin underneath it. A throne with an ancient evil’s presence echoing for his audience. His blade hand tightened in anticipation, observing the dead crowd. He looked to the statue. He froze. For the eyes of the statue were locked onto him in a gaze.

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  “Child of Dragni, why have you dare enter my tomb…” The whispering mother’s voice carried with the wind. Omar hesitated, until he sheathed his sword. He bowed acknowledging the goddess. “I came searching for Elysium. I wish to bear the blade to raise the wards of my realm. So, we may defeat Dragni in this battle.”

  Silence paused his bow, as he searched the statue for answers. It didn’t move. Shadows concealed the room again, slithering across the chamber floor, latching onto Omar’s feet. “You wish for power?” Omar hurried a response. “No. I wish to stop Dragni and the Specters, so the ones I care for may live!” Sincerity became the voice of reason.

  The dungeon seemed to tremble, the air was alive with a hum of dark power forming from the throne chair. Omar gripped the hilt of his sword on instinct as a large shadow formed upon the stage. His breath steady, with worry preparing for what to come. He watched for the shadow to move, yet it remained on the chair.

  “Those who raid this tomb seek Elysium to destroy it, how are you any different child?” Gaia questioned Omar. “When you sacrificed these beings for your wicked goals.”

  From the throne chair, underneath it formed three chairs. Omar’s heart clinched at the sight. His mind raced with uncertainty, slapping himself to ensure the reaility he found himself in is real. Years of solitude were amid being prepared, until he saw them.

  The world seemed to halt. Gaia didn’t whisper nor did the shadows move. For a moment, his eyes played tricks on him, until they surprised him with the greatest gift of them all. A fleeting illusion of what all he managed to sacrifice to be in this moment. The light catching each one of their faces from the curve of their jaws. The unmistakable way they carried each of themselves. They lived. It was them.

  “Omar!” Luna’s voice rang in the air like a bell. “He made it!” Natasha held an ounce of hope smiling. “He did it.” Magnus smiled, yet all three were tied up in shadow chains on metal chairs.

  “You all… you all.” Omar dropped to his knee. “You all live.” He softened his tone. His hand gripped his chest shocked, but at ease. He laughed. “This fucking world. It’s sick. This. This. This is an illusion isn’t it?”

  Before any of them could speak, their mouths were shut by the shadow chains. The three were positioned above the tomb as observers. “Whether it is or not, is left up by you Diborn. Your kind are nothing but vial. If you intend to let them live, you will face your terror. The being which haunts you.”

  Omar could grasp the thought of what it was that formed around the throne chair. The being a monster unlike anything he had ever seen. The fire inside of it never dwindled, but only brightened by the darkness and chaos living inside of it. A being made from the darkness of solitude. A being no man wishes to accept as its own. This thing, vial and tormented by its glance alone, froze Omar. Its greatest weakness, its own reflection.

  Those same onyx eyes and sharp glance Omar would give, rested on its face. Gaia whispered into his ear, as it rose in all black onyx metal armor with a devilish smile. “Yourself.” Omar tensed, seeing the black shadow reflection of himself walk down the stairs in utter confidence.

  He rushed backwards, but the black flames surrounded the chamber now. The only path opened to escape, towards the being descended the chaos flames. The monster inside him. Death a moment away, as the shadow pulled out a large black great sword, laughing vitally, all while Luna, Magnus, and Natasha watched it completely throw Omar off. “Elysium only is worthy of the man pure enough to wield it.” Gaia whispered. “And you. Are far from pure, Diborn…”