And so we entered.
On the other side of the immense black doors, was a vault as big as the inside of a grand Cathedral. It had black, stone walls. They rose seven stories high. Giant columns, each as wide as a cart, ran down the length of the vault in four rows. The other end of the chamber was the length of a football field, away.
Some light came from torches mounted in brackets along the walls and pillars, but this was swallowed up by the greedy blackness. The true illumination came from a canal of glowing, viscous magma that ran down the center of the vault floor. Stone bridges and restored wooden walkways crossed over it. At the end of the chamber, it disappeared into an immense, sculpted head of Tsathoggua, mouth open to drink the glowing, hot, orange.
Unnatural statues lined the canal, their shadows in the magma-light did not seem to match with their shapes. Yet, I had no difficulty looking away from them. More than these peculiar wonders, something else commanded our attentions.
Mounted on wooden racks, three stories tall, were holding cells packed with slaves.
Each set of racks had wooden stairways for their spines. They branched off at each floor as long, wooden walkways. I had seen a similar but much smaller structure once before at Dura, before the summer harvest festival. It had been built alongside the docks so merchant barges could pull up as close as possible to it. Cheery, lanterns and green pennants had been hung along its sides, the planks of its walkways groaned under the traffic of laughing men, spilling cheap beer. Packed into wooden cages along the walkways, stacked three high, were slaves brought for the festival. Over two days, those cages were filled and emptied three times; almost 600 found new masters.
But, that structure had been only two stories tall, with walkways going around a central block of cells. Each of these structures was twice as long, and had three blocks of cells on each floor, accessed by two, parallel walkways. And there were six of these structures. I did a quick calculation: if they were all filled, that could have been as many as six thousand slave girls here!
We made our way to the nearest one, dumbstruck, trying to take it all in.
"How are there so many?" Said Scar Brow, "I have never seen such things!"
"No one has."
As we approached the first block of holding cells, we could make out the shadows of hundreds of caged figures turning to face us. Awareness among them moved out in a wave, like behavior in a stadium. Hands clutched at wooden cage bars. Kneeling girls sitting up, others cowering.
They didn’t make a single sound.
What had the power to keep so many slaves so quiet?
As we reached the structure, my two Mazgar bodyguards broke down and ran to it, laughing and cheering. Ther sounds echoed in the great chamber into something inhuman.
"Be quiet!" I hissed in vain.
One ran along a bank of cages. Each cage was a 3-foot cube. It was stacked in a column, three cages high. He passed his fingers over the wooden bars as he ran past the columns of cages. Inside them, naked, pale, dark-haired girls gasped and shrank back. He stopped and reached into one, the girl squealed as he grabbed her throat. He pulled her head between the bars and kissed her. The slave winced. The Mazgar laughed, cut the straps tying the cage door shut, and dragged the girl out. She collapsed on the ground, legs too numb to stand. He pressed her back against another cage, pulled out his penis, and shoved it into her mouth. Her eyes became wide and she started bobbing her head back and forth, hands gripping his legs.
"There's no time for this!" I barked. "We have a job to do!"
The warrior ignored me and gripped the slave’s hair with both hands.
From one floor above, I heard seven or eight girls crying out. There was a pounding of feet, I looked up to see their shadows as they ran. I heard Scar Brow and the crack of a whip. Then, his heavier footsteps as he pounded after the girls.
"Damn you all to Hell! Can't you contain yourselves?" I took the steps and ran up to the second floor walkway.
A tall, slim, dark-haired girl almost crashed into me. She shrieked and jerked back, turning to flee down and adjoining walkway to my left. Other girls rushed off to her - none of them were Naya. Laughing and chasing after them, with his dick out in his hand, was Scar Brow. Behind him was the open cage door for a larger, group cell. Caged girls stared at us, terrified.
All silent.
"You should've caught one," he laughed.
"I grabbed him by the shoulder.
"You have orders," my words were tipped in steel.
He wrenched free and shoved me, almost knocking me off the walkway. I watched as he ran after the girls, catching one that had tripped and fallen. It was the tall girl. He pushed her flat against the walkway, locked an arm around her throat, and began thrusting. The girl's body jerked with each stroke. She let out a moan.
Surrounded by slaves and on my own, I started looking for my property.
"Naya?" I called out as loud as I dared. "Naya?"
I plucked a lit torch from a bracket and held it in front of the cages as I passed. Girls looked away, shielding their eyes from a brightness they had not seen in a very long time.
"Master!" Said one, hands clutching the bars, face pressed between them. "Master, please! Take me!"
"How long have you been here, Slave?" I squatted in front of her. She reached out and grabbed my arm, fingers digging into me.
"A year, Master," she would not let go of my arm. “I do not know.”
"Do you know a girl named Naya?" I held her hand. "She has not been down here long."
"I am Naya! Take me from here, Master! Take me!"
She licked my hand hungrily as I wondered what a year in a dark cage, too afraid to speak, did to a young woman's mind.
"You are not Naya," I pulled my hand away and stood. She threw herself against the bars and whined. "Do not worry, Men will take you far from here, and put you in chains."
"Don't go!" Tears formed in her eyes. "Please, Master, don't go!"
I heard a girl squealing in orgasm. Normally, I found that a pleasant sound. Now though, it sounded completely hollow.
"Naya?" I called out, moving on. "Naya!"
I made my way along.
I soon noticed a blue-green glow coming from the center of the vault, we had not noticed it earlier as the holding cells had blocked it. What was it? I walked to the end of the holding block and looked down.
At first I thought I was looking at a creature; an immense snake or worm sitting coiled on top of itself. Then, I saw that it was a structure. Its surface was rough and pitted, like old stone. It gave off an uneven glow, as if fairy lights had been trapped inside it. The weathering on the walls almost looked like written words, but the more I concentrated on them, the more I felt the sharp, stabbing of a migraine. The sound of sloshing and bubbling water rose from the bizarre structure. There was a triangular entrance at its base. Yellow-white light spilled out of it.
What did any of this matter? I looked away and regarded the slave girls crammed into their cages, their eyes all staring at me.
"Naya!" I yelled. I tried three more times, as loud as I could. I didn't care who heard me. What did it matter? This had been for nothing. I had come here, for nothing. If I had only minded my own business and refused that cultist that day in the market, I would not be here now, in the depths of some hellish, forgotten temple in the middle of a raging and uncertain battle. What had happened to her? Had she been sacrificed to the butcher, her organs used to breed some monstrous subhuman? Or was she huddled in a cell, driven mad?
If only I had just minded my own business. If only I had seen the problems and threats Hyperboreans face as real, and not some sort of entertaining game for me to play at, Naya would still be with me. I recalled the smooth, slender lines of her back, her legs, her well shaped, little ankles. How her buttocks cupped neatly in my hand and the squeals she made when I slapped them. The dark, intelligent eyes, first scheming only to escape, then, only to please. If only-
"Master!" I heard my woman call out. "Master! I am here!"
"Naya!" She had called out from behind. I turned to -
Standing at the other end of the walkway was the Flautist surgeon.
At eight feet tall, it was a giant. Up this close, I could see ichor dripping from the goggled, beaked, metal mask, like old, congealing, blood. Breathing holes flared and closed down its spine. Carried by several of its arms was Scar Brow’s corpse. It seemed to weighed no more to the Flautist than a sheet of paper. Blood ran from deep cuts to the man’s chest, throat, and leg. Scar Brow's eyes had been removed.
The one free hand held the bone flute. It started to play.
The last, surviving Mazgar came charging up the walkway, roaring, spear ready.
"No!" I called out. "Keep your distance from it! It-"
The man ignored me and charged the Flautist. The creature dropped Scar Brow's corpse, turned, and snapped the brave into two with a single, scissor-like hand. Slave girls screamed as blood jetted from the body, drenching them in their cages.
Blades dripping, the Flautist began to walk towards me.
I turned and ran. It did not pick up speed behind me; I dared to glance over my shoulder and saw it still walking slowly, like a man out for a quiet walk.
Where could I go?
"Master!" I heard Naya screaming again. This time I could tell where it was coming from: the strange, snake-shaped structure at the center of the vault. "Master, please!"
Girls started screaming behind me as the Flautist drew closer.
I ran down to the bottom of the block, then across to the next one, putting the cells between me and the creature. I quickly took stock: the creature was between me and the exit, I did not fancy my chances running past it - I had seen how fast it could move when it wanted to. I was only alive now because it was curious; or playing a game.
In the other direction was Naya, at the glowing structure. I made my way along, looking to see where the Flautist was. I stopped at a cage and grabbed a girl by her hair; she cried out as I yanked her head to the side and peered over her shoulder.
There it was! Moving across the stone floor, and faster. Just before I looked away, it notice me. It changed its course to come right at me, faster still!
I found the girl Scar Brow had been using, bound by her wrists and ankles to form an "X" up against several cages. She shivered and trembled, Scar Brow's blood had splashed over her back and legs. Heaped beside her were his things. The Mazgar spear with its notched blade lay propped, and the business end of Scar Brow’s blow pipe poked out from a leather bag.
The blow pipe!
The slave girl shrieked and cowered against the cage bars as I ran over. I ignored her as I rifled through Scar Brow's effects. In a small, knotted bag were three, dried seeds and a bound stone pot about the size of a curled finger. It had been tightly tied shut, with grease used to seal it. I wound a piece of cloth around it, and opened it. Inside was a bright, yellow paste. I had seen Mazgar braves dipping their arrowheads in pots of liquid that looked similar. They never dipped more than one arrowhead, at a time.
Behind me, the girls caged at the start of the cell block had begun screaming. The Flautist had arrived.
"Go!" I drew my knife and cut the bonds that held the trembling girl. She looked back at me over her shoulder, eyes wild, then stepped away, hands crossed over her breasts, staring at me. She looked over my shoulder and terror did the rest. She fled screaming.
"Go," I slashed the leather bindings that held a cage shut. I grabbed the naked girl inside by her ankle and she squealed as I dragged her out. "Run! Or it will kill you! It will kill all of you!"
The girl fled, howling. The other slaves around me began to shriek and bang against their cage doors, hands reaching out for me.
Here," I handed one a knife, "cut yourself and your sisters free!"
I took Scar Brow's knife and gave it to another girl. "Cut yourselves free, slave!"
"Yes, Master!" She replied, a long-legged Shemite girl with large lips. Sure enough, she cut the bonds on her cage door, scrambled out, and began severing the bonds for the cage next to hers.
I looked back. The Flautist, now halfway down the length of the cellblock, had stopped. Its head tracked the escaping slaves.
"Get back!" I drew my sword and stepped up to a large cage with six girls crammed into it. They shrank to the back of the cage, and cried out as I slashed through the door, the broadsword's heavy steel smashing through the wooden bars like they were toothpicks.
"Out! Out now, Slaves!"
"Yes, Master! They climbed out and fled.
The Flautist watched as an Ansaru girl quickly untied the bindings on another group cage, and seven girls came rushing out. The surgeon turned and started after them, but they scattered. It paused, as if uncertain. It started after the long-legged Shemite girl with the nice lips; she saw it coming and took off. She reached the next cell block and began opening cages.
The Flautist stopped, looking this way and that, as more and more screaming girls ran about the vault.
Fit!
It turned and looked right at me as the blow dart fell short and rolled towards it, leaving a bright yellow trail on the floor. The Flautist’s finger blades flexed too fast to follow, and it began striding towards me.
Fit!
The second blow dart went wide. I picked up another dart with a wadded rag and dipped it in the yellow poison. It slipped out and fell.
The Flautist rushed at me, finger blades, sparking as they cracked.
Fuck!
I picked up the cup barehanded, roared, and flung it at the creature as hard as I good.
The poison splashed across the surgeon's chest. It stopped and froze, looking down at the liquid dripping down its body.
“Fuck you, asshole!”
Whatever the creature was, part of it had been human once. The Flautist began to jolt, spasms running through its body. It's blades unfurled and slashed through the air. One caught the edge of a cage and cut it open like a dagger through a belly.
I watched as the creature tumbled onto its back, flailing like a cockroach, right before it began eviscerating itself. A smell like rotting meat rose from the cavity. Inside, dark brown structures that looked like spider eggs were torn open, spilling out dark red liquid.
I saw the same twisted wire. I had seen inside the body of the giant I'd dissected back at the bandit camp. Blue, insect-like parasites floated up in the ichor. The scissorhands kept snapping. They seemed to sense me as I came close, poor Scar Brow’s spear in hand.
I shoved its point where a man's brain would've been, gave it a brutal twist, and ripped it out. The spear came away with grey, ropey matter, thinner than the lobes of a human brain and with black bodies embedded along them like sucking parasites. The black bodies seemed to move.
I threw the spear aside and made my way towards the glowing structure that held my slave.
Behind me, the flute kept playing.