A tribute to Dark Souls. Originally appeared in the Astral Noize Soulsborne Issue, available here.
“The rogue knight is fall’n, your Grace.” The royal assassin Prometha knelt. Scorn burned in her heart with all the ferocity of love.
Far across the vast chamber lounged the Sunlight Princess, radiant upon her chaise, grand in her divinity, vast in her matronhood. The great sun shone and fell upon her face, her bosom. Luminous rays gleamed off the Covenant knights’ greaves, diffusing upon the marble beneath them.
All armed with untarnished steel, all faceless behind their silver armor.
O, how this place gleamed even as the world below fell to ruin!
“Arise, child, and come hither that I might anoint thee with my blessing.”
The royal assassin obeyed, silent behind her black mask.
“I would hear testimony of thy deed. Spake he any words of spite, of regret?” The Goddess’ words rang soft and dulcet tones as if the topic were not slaughter.
“He said nothing, My Lady.” Prometha knew it was still there but resisted the urge to brush a hand against the hidden blade, the occult-kissed dagger concealed in the folds of her sleeve. It had been bequeathed to her by the very one she had been sent to slay – the Darkstalker’s agent, hooded and cloaked in wraithlike shadow. No God’s eye could see its steel… yet the mere thought of it bestowed an ineffable sense that her treachery was already known. As if she were the one doomed and entrapped.
“He answered for his crimes.”
The great Princess smiled sadly. “Thou know’st I take no pleasure to see one of my children perish. It is a pity that he could not be saved. Nevertheless thou hast my thanks. Go, child, and find he who is chief amongst my knights. He will bestow thy reward.”
“He of the lion-helm?” Prometha asked through gritted teeth.
The Goddess affirmed it.
“Thy kingdom is vast,” said the assassin, drawing ever closer. An unseen snarl formed. “Where might I find the Dragonslayer?”
The Sunlight Princess nodded upward toward the Cathedral roof and the great sun above, exposing her neck for but a moment, and in that instant Prometha snapped forth her black-clad arm, wrist pointed to that great fleshy throat. The dagger came free, glinting with streaks of blackened light.
The steel flew true, burying itself exactly where Prometha had sent it. Clattering knights rushed in vain to intercept the attack, rendered too slow by the very might which defined them.
There was a great shriek, distorted and askew, reverberating unnaturally throughout the chamber. The Princess’ material form vanished like an eidolon before the assassin’s eyes, leaving only a black dagger jutting out from the chaise.
Sick feeling in her gut.
This isn’t right. This isn’t real.
At once the sun faded, the chamber darkened, and Prometha knew the horrid truth. Entropy had found the City of the Gods just as it had taken the mortal realms.
The Flame was to die, and all with it.
“I should have seen the treachery in thy heart.” The new voice filled the chamber from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Childish, girlish, it rang from above, from within, from without. “Thou wilt not escape this place. Warriors! Put this heretic to death. Let her be kindling.”
The voice faded as quickly as it had manifested, leaving only the sounds of war, only darkening twilight where day had once reigned.
The knights advanced, to bring vengeance to their quarry, a lone traitor in blackened oiled leather. They bore winged lances more suited to armored foes than a limber assassin the likes of her.
Prometha weaved amongst them, dancing betwixt savage blows and fatal thrusts even as the footfalls of reinforcements echoed all around threatening encirclement. To stand and fight was not an option. She could take one or two, but here the swarm would surely overwhelm and obliterate her, and she needed to live to wage war against the Gods once more.
So the betrayer stole away, bashing her shoulder into the lion-carved door, forcing her way through, hurling herself down those grand stairs without regard for the pain it brought.
She rose as quickly as she fell.
In the cathedral, archers readied their greatbows, aiming down from catwalks, from distant buttresses. They sought to bring her down, but no arrow could match her alacrity, nor could the vision of those who loosed them pierce the veil of the endarkened hallowed skies.
A whistle. The crash of steel on stone, again and again.
Yet nothing did touch her.
Prometha pressed on with all she had, with fire in her heart, o’er marble now cracked, o’er foundations now crumbling, the moribund spirit of the City Above now laid bare before her.
Damn the Gods. Damn them all! Their splendor and sunlight was naught but a lie of their own forging. An illusion, all, and all at our expense.
Prometha pressed on with silvered death at her heels.
Lungs burned like cinders in her core. She’d staved off as much exhaustion as she could, but could go no further now, not without respite.
She ducked into a niche where even moonlight deigned not shine, struggling to stay silent as she caught her breath. Great constructs filled much of the air around – hollow suits of armor furious in appearance but inert for lack of Light. She thanked Fortune for that, at least, as she scrambled to hide behind them and not a moment too soon, for just then the cacophony of boots approached.
She waited in dreadful silence. If those pursuant armigers found her, they would surely drag her before the Executioner. A grim fate. The great brute would break her entirely. Grind her bones to dust to satiate his vast appetite.
But the silvered knights passed by, rendered ignorant by the royal assassin’s guile as thunder boomed above. It was if the Great Lord himself demanded retribution, yet found himself too impotent to enact it himself. Lightning pierced the blackened sky again and again. Still air gave way to a furious gale which set her cloak and hood to snapping.
In time the footsteps abated, and Prometha crawled into the open, tearing a great halberd from the grip of an unliving brass sentinel. It took all her might to wrest the weapon from the brass-locked grip.
Her only chance was lower ground, the dark places. Disappear into the Great Burg whence she came so long ago, hide there among the dregs a while. Or perhaps she could find refuge in the Four Kings’ realm. A decision for later. First, escape.
Now armed, she peeked the corner and finding naught but dark empty air, she ventured out of hiding.
It became clear that Fate had left her no route but the half-built Fortress of Trials. Zealous and indignant pursuers blocked all else.
The labyrinthine architecture brought Prometha to a narrow buttress which in turn gave way to a turret hosting a lift. The oversized polearm served as a balance as she trod the narrow path, grateful that she could not see below.
Once across, she gave a furtive glance over her shoulder and pulled the lever on the tower’s exterior, gazing into the chasm below where rattling chains began to clank and echo. Unoiled machinery creaked and groaned as it did its work all too slowly, unseen in those depths. It was all so loud that Prometha scarcely heard that which crept behind her. Brass on stone, light steps like her own.
It was all she could do to bring up the halberd’s haft to meet the overhand blow. The greatsword’s force brought Prometha to her knees, and only when she staggered back did she see her assailant, the brass knightess who tended the flames.
“Heretic!”
The traitor brought the halberd into a high guard once more, only to fall again when she caught the next blow. “We are cursed,” cried Prometha. “The Gods cling to power at our expense! Do you not see how they damn us to slow death and decay?”
She thrust at the assailant. The halberd caught the brass helm and tore it free of its gorget, revealing the knightess’ hideous hollowed visage as she lunged forth.
Prometha could not bring the weapon into guard, so she tried instead to duck the blow, but it proved a feint. The true attack landed squarely upon the royal assassin’s core, a brutal greaved kick which forced the air from her lungs and sent her staggering back, teetering over the edge. There she found no balance nor anything to grip and tumbled into that maw.
She caught once last glimpse of the brass knightess, backlit by the moon as she peered down at the falling assassin.
“Rot in thy sin.”
Prometha tumbled through the void, grasping for anything she might find. Her hand caught some stone in passing, perhaps the platform’s edge, but there was no chance of catching it at such speed.
No hope. Only darkness and the fall.
Prometha awoke in a pile of detritus. Wood and bone and shards of stone her would-be grave. Sloughed serpentskin lay strewn. Torches burned dim in sconces, illuminating roughshod scaffolding.
She forced herself to her feet, one hand cradling her shattered ribs, the other catching the blood she spewed with each wheezing cough. Clinging to life, she staggered through the half-built gauntlet until the experiments of the scaleless dragon came for her.
Too injured to flee now, and the narrow corridors offered nowhere to hide. All was lost.
She fell to her knees, leaned against the wall and waited, bleeding as the scaled ones came for her.
Hissing. Slithering. Forked tongues darting.
The man-serpents shackled her with indifference. The cobra-magus threw a filthy over sack over her head.
Thus bound, they branded her with the Curse, the enchanted steel rod burning undeath into her flesh. Dead skin crackled, but she did not cry out.
They could fill her veins with venom, they could rend her flesh with steel and crystal. They could drink the very marrow from her bones, but she would not scream.
No, Prometha’s way was to grit her teeth in silence until oblivion took her. She would not deign to plead for mercy. They would never extort that glory from her.
The undead awoke with frigid cold and howling wind all around. The hood still hid all from her sight. She felt the cage’s bars behind her and beside her. Her flesh was again intact, her agony replaced by the vast emptiness of undeath.
How long she waited there, she did not know.
In time the gaoler hurled her from the cage and removed the hood. She knew her crime. She had raised a blade against a God. Yet by now she struggled to recall who she had been.
I must have been a knave. Am I not wearing the garb of some common thief, or some petty cutthroat?
But by the time she reached the cells, she had forgotten even that heroic crime which doomed her to the asylum. There was nothing but her emptiness.
Who am I?
The time would one day come that a foreign knight free her. Without a word, he would throw down a stolen key that she might be freed. Then she would cast off the shackles placed upon her brethren, all in furtherance of prophecy.
But until that long-fated day she would simply sit awaiting the world’s end.
There she waited, bereft of soul and spirit, never really knowing why.
Fate-chosen, she lingered in that rusted cell amongst hollows ever shambling, amongst demons ever reeking, awaiting that inevitable day with scorn for the Gods in her heart.