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War of the Words | Chapter 13 →
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The sound began in the dead of night, a keening wail that filled the watch with dread, seeming to come from all directions at once. The guards sought to pinpoint it with speed. They searched for 30 minutes before waking Delnar. The noise continued but no source could be found.
When the sound came Darin was fast asleep, but the unearthly aspect of the howl brought him awake instantly. His ship was still a quarter of a day from shore at least and though Darin peered out into the night, he could find no discernible source for the sound, no origin whatsoever.
In Darin's service to the Lord of the Waters, he had heard and seen many things. Some great and some terrible, but he could not place this sound at all. He could not imagine what magic, device, or creature could be creating such a soul-wrenching cacophony.
Darin was used to being in the know; his quest for knowledge and power had come about in large part because of his fear of not knowing and of not being in control. It had been years since he felt as helpless as he did on that ship.
Delnar listened to the keening howl with a mixture of dread and fascination. There was something simultaneously fascinating and bloodcurdling about the noise, something that spoke to forbidden recesses of his mind about forbidden thoughts and pleasures.
"Such music," said one of the day watch who had been awakened by the search. "Such lovely music."
"Music?" Delnar asked with doubt. "Is that what you think it is..."
"Yes sir, can't you feel it? Can't you hear it...?"
As Delnar listened closely to the noise that seemed to emanate from everywhere, he began to detect a discernible pattern in the sounds, some otherworldly score being played by instruments that had never seen the light of day. Music...
Darin noted the sailors were not reacting to the sound at all but hurriedly going about their business; this comforted and scared him.
"What is that noise?" he asked a midshipman who rushed past him on his way to fulfill some unknown errand.
"It's the Siren's call, sir... you best not be listening to it, either. The siren leads the unwary to their death..."
"The siren..?" Darin was dumbfounded; he did not believe for a second that the noise he heard came from some merwoman out of the sailor's legend. He knew more of the deep's denizens then nearly any living soul and he had never found merfolk that would waste their valuable time leading ships to their doom for no apparent reason.
Though, as Darin listened, he had to admit that the haunting noise did resemble a melody, nay, a full song with harmony as well. A song like none he had ever heard, but a song nonetheless. It certainly did not sound like the singing voice of a beautiful woman, though. It did not involve singing at all, so far as Darin could discern. No, Darin decided, the music was instrumental, though he could hardly imagine what instrument might produce such chilling and haunting strains. The sound seemed to come from the sky, from the water, from the boat itself. It was all encompassing and at length Darin, too, learned to drown out the noise. It was music -- loud music, frightening to those not expecting it, but just music...
The music did not cease until the sun's first rays flooded through the mess camp. Though no source could be found, Delnar had doubled the watch and had parties continuing to seek the source of the unearthly sounds. In the end, Delnar had searched himself, but like his men he could find nothing, so he remained awake, pensive and on edge.
It was a full hour after sunrise that the first sign of anything being amiss was brought to Delnar's attention. A line scout had advanced to the front and what he had seen had frozen his blood: death everywhere. During the dark of night, it appeared as if the Vandarian army had planned a surprise raid, but something powerful had met them and decimated them. Though the scout searched for signs of life, not one living soul was found at the front line, just corpses horribly mangled and mutilated by some unknown evil darkness. Even with the massive carnage, it could not begin to account for the totality of the Vandarian army, but no signs of them could be detected, just the dead.
It was a second scout that brought the most disturbing news of all, news that could not be placed. The carnage that remained consisted of many body pieces but not one corpse was a remotely full body. Not one corpse was intact or could even be pieced together from the body parts that lay around it.
"What evil is this?" Delnar asked no one in particular. He did not receive an answer. There were none to give.
Darin knew that something was horribly wrong even before his ship docked at port. The bustle of the port had ceased. There was no evidence of any traffic among the fishermen and the escort he had been promised was not present. As the ship dropped anchor, Darin became even more aware of the village's horrid stillness. There were no signs of life, no people, none of the cats and dogs that ordinarily frequented the wharf, indeed none of the sea birds that were one's constant companions on the quay. The city was silent and empty. As Darin disembarked, he became quickly aware that this was not an illusion. No signs of life could be detected up and down the wharf. The businesses that dotted the water front remained shut. No signs of smoke poured from household chimneys to suggest the preparation of morning meal. Not a single soul wandered the streets. Darin could see along the central way that the Market Square too was completely devoid of life. The booths that should have long since opened and a few less reputable ones that never closed were all silent.
Darin sped down the road past the market onto the temple way. The temple square, too, was empty. He came to the door to the great temple of the powers and to his dismay found that the temple itself was devoid of any sign of life. It was then that Darin became aware of the smell of blood and decay that filled his nostrils. Darin entered the central narthex and looked into the naves to each of the pantheon's powers.
A great violence had happened on these grounds, an unholy desecration. The remains of severed body parts littered several of the temples and their artifacts and worship spaces were torn asunder.
The temple to the Water Lord was no exception to the slaughter and the death. Indeed, as Darin searched the temple, he found just two untouched by the hand of destruction, though having never attended a service in the stark spaces he could not swear that their desolation was not the result of someone stealing the temple treasures. The temple to the Dark Lord was free of body parts and other signs of destruction, though the smell of decay lay heavy in the air. At the very opposite end, the temple to the power of Light lay sealed and untouched. Darin tried the door to the nave, but it would not budge. Something sinister had happened here and it chilled him. With widening alarm, Darin picked his way through the mess in the worship space for the Water Lord, the most popular and most lavishly decorated temple in the port town, and past the alter began his descent into the holy of holies within. He was brought up short: not only was the door to this secret sanctuary ajar, but Darin could hear whispers of voices within...
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