Drowning Utopia

Chapter 33: Saving the Princess

Taking the vials, she emptied the last glass bottle she had used for her firebombs, and thoroughly cleaned it out. Checking to make sure it was as clean as she could get it, Tessa took the metal flasks and mixed the components in the glass bottle. As it changed color, Tessa observed the door and considered the best place to pour the "liquid cutter" as the twins dubbed it when she first discovered the mix. She carefully splashed its contents onto the hinges of the double doors. Immediately, a hissing noise proceeded forth from where the liquid made contact, the bubbling and smoking metal melting away as the door supports began to buckle. Stepping back, Tessa watched with the others as the doors under their own weight fell forward, spilling down the steps and past them with a splash into the water.

Tessa motioned to the open entrance, "After you. and, best not to touch the door frame, if you want to avoid losing anything."

Vain led the others up the steps with their weapons drawn and at the ready. Behind them, Tessa and Lonny lit their electric lamps, Tessa withdrawing her stolen revolver. The light illuminated the large-columned chamber with polished floors and stone edifices. Unlike the outside, there was no indication of water within the elevated Memorial Station. The banister and the archways were decorated with banners and ribbons in celebration for the opening of the Grand Spire, but the jubilant decorations gave a stark contrast to the dark, cold chamber, devoid of life or light, say for the small handheld lamps that they had.

Tessa gagged a bit when a strong stench wafted past her nose, "Oh, what is that?"

"I know that stench," Captain Brine said with a chill. "It's the smell of death."

The spotlights from their lamps passed over the floor, revealing clear evidence that there had been a great struggle. Tessa realized what she smelled was the blood and bile from the numerous bodies that were scattered about. A small number of flies swarmed about the corpses with a low buzzing sound. A host of rodents was nibbling on their exposed innards. Disturbingly, the limbs and organs were missing from most of the bodies.

In the center of the chamber was a diagram with nine lines emanating from a skull, painted in the blood of the fallen, a pile of intestines and the severed limbs placed in a ring around the image. Donny hurled, and Diana had to take a few steps back. Lonny stood next to Tessa dumbstruck.

"What happened here?" Gray asked, angered and disgusted.

Tessa was sickened when she realized that most of the remains were women and children.

"It's the families of the shopkeepers and property owners from the residential district," Vain whispered. "It looks as if they gathered here and tried to defend themselves."

"But why their eyes...why?" Lonny asked with a hoarse voice.

Tessa could not bear to look anymore, as the bodies stared up at them with their empty sockets.

"I have seen this before, but not since I was a young boy," Xo-Xing said, oddly calm for the situation. "It's an old Kigezan tradition. A ritualistic sacrifice of one's enemies to satisfy the gods."

Donny turned on Xo-Xing, "Are you telling me that this massacre is some kind of sick homage for those gray-skins?"

"It was a rite of passage before the Albanese came. To lead a war party against a neighboring tribe of people and to sacrifice a number of them to please the divines. It was mainly practiced by the Kigezan, but even the native Omale and a few tribes among the Oni would carry out similar disemboweling. Such practices fell out of favor when the settlers established Gailsong, and the Nine Pillars where destroyed, but the ritual has survived on the frontier."

"But why? Why such a heinous act?" Gray demanded. "The Boomers may be backwater trash, but this?"

"Their leader," Tessa shivered, holding herself. "He said he wanted to bring back the old gods. I heard him say so to Mr. Fisk before he killed him."