The Sharded Blade | Part 1 (A Dark Fantasy Novella)

Part 19

The distinct erotic sounds of lust being explored dashed out of various rooms and through the temple halls with all the moans, cries, and ecstatic screams appropriate to intense sexual frolicking.

The level of extreme debauchery playing itself out all around me didn't embarrass me, or anything like that.  It wasn't as if I was a prude.  But it made my skin crawl, knowing what these people, some of them at least, had done to my Carli.  The sensation consuming me was one akin of simply being out of place, not to mention potentially and obviously so.   As a lone person walking amongst groups, all seeking one thing while I sought another objective all together, I hoped my singular status wasn't drawing any unneeded attention.  The good news was, it didn't seem to be.

From her hiding place in the shadows of the hood, Gertrude guided me through the various passageways of the temple with whispers in my ear.  Her voice was becoming eerily clearer as time passed.  I still heard her words mostly as growls, hisses, squeaks, and so on. But underneath those, there was this dingy, yet sweet, and honestly somewhat seductive, ring to her tone.

Part of me believed we were doing nothing more than wandering with aimless intent, if not in circles.  The inside of the temple was one big loop on the ground level, with an additional two long, main passages traveling from each of the four entrances to the one ending exactly opposite of it.

Personally, I was ready to give up on finding any of my quarry when, all of a sudden, a man exited one chamber, pulling up his hood as we approached.  But not before I caught a perfect look at the olive skin tone his face exhibited.  With Gertrude's clear identification of him as someone I had come here looking for, presuming he was the one Carli described as being 'in between' the lighter and darker men, I felt my enthusiasm for being here escalate to remarkable new heights.

I followed him down the hall and into one of four rooms, each occupying a corner where the straight passages intersected in the middle of the temple. Noting the not-so-subtle increase in temperature and the wisps of steam escaping from these chambers, I assumed they were some type of communal sauna.

Before just barreling in behind him, I halted, noticing he'd disrobed and was taking up a position among a trio of others in a similar state of nakedness.  Each lounged with that casual, couldn't-give-a-damn attitude on long stone benches lining the various levels of a square and steaming pit.  I could probably, and non-fatally, subdue the other three, but I didn't want to attract unwanted attention.  Or leave witnesses.

If I'd have procured another blade, as I had fully intended to, but hadn't, one that wasn't cursed and only able to kill assigned targets, I could have waltzed right in there and done them all in.

That not being an option, I chose instead to wait for a better opportunity to present itself.  But also not to stick around and linger like a bump on a log.  Not with how everyone else seemed to be in constant motion. I felt just standing still would be too obvious for someone who was already a fish out of water in this cesspool.  So I took to cycling up and down the passage, back and forth, keeping the room's lone entrance, also its only exit, in sight as best I could.

Perhaps it was luck, but on about my fifth circuit of the hall, I noticed three men leaving and made a beeline back for the room.  There I eyeballed my target, still lounging there and all alone.  I entered, hovering near the pegs meant for our robes to be stored on while keeping mine on, and started to formulate how to do what I was about to do without drawing a crowd.  The pit in the center was packed full of red-hot stones, while a pipe from the bottom of a large metal reservoir atop of one of the sides ran down and provided a gentle stream of water onto them and created the soothing steam.

"Brother," the man I intended to kill called out to me jovially as I stood there. "Do me a favor?  How about increasing the flow a bit?  I'd like it hotter in here."

I didn't reply, except to nod and approach the cistern mounted on its three struts.  A sliding valve near the base was only about an eighth of the way open.  At first, I thought about just opening it completely and wondering if that would create enough steam to cover my planned deed.  But then decided to not take a chance and opted for a more drastic, if not dramatic, choice.

With a swift kick to one of the legs, it buckled, and I sent the container tumbling down onto the stone seating arrangement and hurling its full contents onto the rocks in a crashing wave.  Steam consumed the room in a flash, and my target reacted too late.  While he was being boiled alive, the steam warmed my normally cold body to a normal temperature.  Although the olive-skinned man was lost to my view, I had experience in these sorts of situations and he would not escape my wrath.

Springing into action, predicting his speed and trajectory with practiced ease, I was on him in an instant as he flailed up the steps and for the exit, skin now deep red like a boiled lobster.  Knife in my victim's back, I was relieved of one more shard and another step closer to dying myself.

Still unable to see, but having memorized the layout of the simple room, I discarded his body onto the hot rocks where his sizzling skin added to the sound of steam being over produced.

After that, I proceeded for the door, ducking off to the side just as five other cultists attempted to enter while steam billowed out.  The intense heat forced them back. While they stumbled and retreated, I exited with them, as though I had been part of their rescue party all along. And then I disappeared into the crowd that had grown to watch the spectacle of my own making.

There were three more annoying bits of metal waiting to find a home tonight.  And I would not deprive them of their final resting places.