The Warrior

Well of Souls

I woke up on a slab of pavement.  Heat was coming from all around me.  I was in a cage of some sort.  The front wall was made of interlocking metal bars.  There was another across from mine.  A gargoyle was in it.  I recognized him.  It was Enceladus, one of the others who sat perched atop the library, and there were more I knew in this chamber.  There was Corvus, Monoceros, Tucana, Sagitta…and Draco.  He did not have his horns anymore.

I stood up and went to the front wall of my cell, calling down the hall.  "Draco!  It is I, Orion.  I have come to save thee from doom!"

He looked at me from his cell and then looked back down.  "We are all near to doom, Orion.  Not even the great Cepheus can help us now."

"You looked to be quite dead when Apollyon and Eligos brought you in," Enceladus said to me.  "We feared the worst, even though we find ourselves in an even worse predicament."

"Where is Gemini?" I asked.  "And did you see two human girls?  One was a Sister from the church and another was…"

"We saw the Sister," Draco said, standing up but still looking down.  A narrow hallway separated the two rows of cells, paved with rocks.  Rocks like the stone of gargoyles, like us.  "Legion was taking her to the Well of Souls for the ceremony you will soon take part in, and then us again."

"What ceremony?  And what do you mean by the Well of Souls?"

"It is what drained our powers," said another gargoyle.  It was Callisto, one of the others from the theatre.  "It is a great well that the Devil invites you to bathe in.  We all wanted to, of course.  We came here filthy from the waterway!"  His voice was deep and booming, but his muscles were gone, like Draco and the others.  "We all answered no since it is the Devil, but it did not matter.  Merihem controls the Well of Souls.  He placed us each into the pool, and we were drained."

"Merihem?  Who is Merihem?"

"One of the Devil's followers," Enceladus answered.  "There are five; Eligos, Apollyon, Merihem, Legion and Belial.  Well, Belial is dead, or so we have been told."

"That is because the Sister killed him with her holy cross.  Do you know what they would do with a human girl?  She is of no importance to the scripture taken from the church."

"You let them take the Gospel?" Draco asked.  He was looking at me now with his dark eyes.  "Why, oh why does my life rest in the hands of such an incompetent gargoyle, with no directional skills whatsoever?"

"Cepheus did escape," Callisto said.  "Did he find you and the others?"

"Yes," I answered.  "He is back at the church with Perseus.  They were both injured when the Gospel was taken."

"What happened to your stone?" Enceladus asked.  "We overheard Eligos speaking of a human and demon gargoyle mix, but we did not figure it was you."

"Blitzen changed Gemini, Perseus and I into humans, and I suppose she gave us this ability as well.  She was one of the elemental forces of the Devil, but I put a stop to her.  As it turns out, she had a heart of good and made us humans for a reason.  To stop the Devil."

"It will be a different story when the Well of Souls has you in its grasp," Monoceros said from down the hall.  "When we were first brought here, Cepheus was brought into the room first.  He came back out looking just as a skeleton of death.  Gemini is the lucky one.  He possesses a strong mind, not a strong body."

"That is what worries me."

"Hope is gone for all of us," Draco said.  "When the sun rises in five hours it will set again and never return.  Earth has already plunged itself into the Age of Darkness.  There is nowhere left to go."