LET THERE BE DRAGONS (COMPLETED)

Chapter Fifty-One: The Temple of Eclipse

They walked on clouds.

Tentative at first, the excitement one always feels while attempting something new bobbing in their hearts. As they began to realize that they couldn't see anything below the clouds of pulsing, moaning red light, they became more confident. There was no question of vertigo, but the clouds yielded under their weight like swamplands, and sometimes when their feet went below the surface of the clouds, they could feel things crawling on them. Nasty, wiggly things, that felt like long multiheaded tubeworms.

The Temple of Eclipse towered above and ahead of them, rising like a haunted gothic castle, grey-black stones making up its structure. Its design had no symmetry, tall towers abruptly rose here and there, gates of abnormal shapes were placed randomly across its frontier, and the few windows that could be seen followed no pattern, either. The stones that made up the Temple seemed to be simmering and shifting, as if alive. Maybe the very towers of the Temple were also capable of shifting their positions, maybe the entire building was a monster of some sort. That would explain the head-spinning awkwardness of the Temple's structure.

Arthur walked behind everyone else, looking at the temple distractedly. They had really reached the legendary Temple of Eclipse, hadn't they? And how many knights and warriors and saints have looked for this place but failed to find it, exactly? Yet they had found the Temple quite easily...and soon Shivam would get the Shadowblade, and the girl, and the empire, and he would have to serve Shivam...

What had Shivam done to deserve the Shadowblade? Why shouldn't HE demand it instead?

And as these thoughts troubled Arthur, those walking ahead of him stopped all of a sudden.

***

"Someone is following us," Shivam whispered.

"What?" Tiyasha said, nervous. Josh and Took eyed each other, then huddled together, preparing to fight whatever villain or monster might come.

"Yeah, get ready to summon the Skulls of Hecate, Tiyasha..." Shivam said, turning. "THERE HE IS!" Shivam shouted, pointing at Arthur.

Arthur sighed. Tiyasha punched her head in frustration. Took growled in annoyance, so Josh petted him.

"He's Arthur, Shivam, for god's sake," Tiyasha said, not even trying to hide her contempt. Maybe she should have been happy that the Unseen Price of the ReRaising Ritual had turned out to be the random memory losses of Shivam, but it just frustrated her way too much. They were going into a temple made by the god of darkness to acquire the most powerful sword in this world. Shouldn't Shivam act rationally?

"Oh," Shivam said, realization slowly dawning on his face as the memory came back to him. "Sorry," he said.

"You should try banging your head on those hideous walls," Took suggested to Shivam.

"Took!" Josh wheezed admonishingly. That made everyone laugh, and they started walking again.

***

The long set of stairs that led up to the main gate of the Temple was set in a haphazard manner, so that Shivam and his friends had to balance themselves carefully on each step, in order to not fall down. Climbing the stairs therefore took a lot of time, and when they finally came to the forbidding main gate of the temple, they were all exhausted.

Shivam looked at the gate, breathing laboriously. It was plain black gate, but the grains of the material it was made up of swirled slowly, like some strange organism seen through a microscope. It made Shivam nauseous.

"It's disgusting, isn't it, big brother?" Josh asked.

"This place is horrible," Tiyasha said. "I have a bad feeling bout this," Took said, raising his head from behind Josh.

Shivam raised a hand to push the door open, and it opened by itself.

'Why am I not surprised,' Shivam thought to himself, walking in. The others followed in his wake.

They walked through chambers lit with a blue light, all though they couldn't discern its source. Strange statues of werewolves lined the chambers, with spears in their hands and fire in their eyes. 'I bet they'll come to life sometime soon,' Shivam thought again.

Eventually they came to a chamber in which a black orb, with golden borders, was slowly revolving.

"Welcome to this place of worship, dark ones. I am the one who eats suns, and of my shadows are forged weapons unbeatable. I have waited out ages, eternities, for someone brave enough, dark enough to walk on these holy chambers. Tell me what you seek, dark ones. Defence or offence?" The Orb spoke.

"I seek the Shadowblade," Shivam said.

"Offence, then. As you wish, young man," The Orb said.

And the Shadowblade appeared.

***

Author's Note

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