Kaelen walked, but the strides were not his own.
With every step his leather boots—Groth's boots—pressed into the muddy earth, an alien rhythm echoed in the back of his mind. His own legs were trembling and frail, yet within the memory of these boots dwelt a weight, a certainty. It was a resolve that crushed the soil and commanded the path.
The entrance to the old channels Silas had mentioned was hidden beneath a massive rock crevice where the forest met its end.
The opening was as dark as a gaping maw. The air wafting from within smelled of dampness, mold, and ancient waste. Yet beneath it all lay that familiar scent that stung Kaelen's throat: rust and metal.
He placed his hand against the cave wall. The stone was cold.
...I know this place...
The thought was not his own. It was Groth's memory. The Gravekeeper used to drag corpses through these very tunnels. This was his backyard. Kaelen did not even feel the need to consult the map. His muscles remembered the way. His left leg ached, his right shoulder tensed; it was as if he were carrying an invisible burden.
He stepped into the darkness.
As the light faded behind him, the tunnel was plunged into absolute blackness. For an ordinary eye, this was blindness.
Kaelen took a deep breath, closed his left eye, and opened his right—the Eye of the Void.
The world changed instantly.
The darkness dissolved. The tunnel walls appeared as grey, flickering lines. Puddles on the ground glowed with a dull whiteness. The rats huddled in the corners were like small, rapidly pulsing sparks. Everything had transformed into a sketchbook shaped by the density of life energy and matter.
But this vision came at a price.
A sharp ache began behind his right eye, like a fine needle piercing the bone. Black veins stirred from his temple to his neck, moving like worms beneath the skin.
...be swift...
Elara's voice was faint this time, crackling as if the weight of the underworld were disrupting the signal.
Kaelen quickened his pace. Grief was as silent as a sleeping beast upon his back, but he could feel the metal warming slightly as they descended deeper into the tunnels. The sword sensed the fuel nearby.
They walked for about twenty minutes—Kaelen and the dead man within him.
Then, sounds emerged.
A metallic ring. The muffled echo of a curse. And the splashing of water.
Kaelen stopped. He scanned ahead with his right eye.
Three silhouettes. Their energies flickered in a pale, dirty yellow. They were human, but they were not healthy. There was sickness in their lungs and a weakness in their muscles born of malnutrition.
"This pipe is worthless," one said, his voice echoing through the tunnel. "It is not copper; it is just rusted iron."
"Tear it down anyway," the other replied. "The Scavengers Guild takes iron too. Just for less."
Kaelen drew back into the shadows. These were the Scavengers. The hyenas of the Rust District. Those who survived by gathering and selling the city's waste.
He could have passed them silently. Groth's memories showed him the side tunnels.
But Grief shuddered.
It was not a physical tremor; it was the growl of a hungry stomach. The sword grew hot in its scabbard. Runes began to glow with a violet light beneath the cloth wrappings. Kaelen wanted to place his hand on the hilt to suppress that light, but it was too late.
"What was that?"
One of the Scavengers raised a pry bar and peered into the darkness.
"I saw a violet light," the other said. "Over there."
Kaelen held his breath.
"Maybe it is a rune stone," the third man said, his voice trembling with greed. "They pay a fortune for those in the city."
The three men, armed with rusted pipes and knives, began to walk toward the corner where Kaelen stood.
Kaelen stepped out from his hiding place.
He wore Groth's massive, tattered cloak, and upon his back was a sword as tall as he was. His right eye stood out like a pitch-black hole in the darkness.
The men faltered. The one in the center, the largest of them, swallowed hard.
"Hey," he said tentatively. "Who are you? That thing on your back... what is that glow?"
"Step out of my way," Kaelen said. His voice sounded foreign even to his own ears; Groth's rasp had bled into his own speech.
"Give us that sword," the man on the right said, gathering his courage. "Then we will let you pass. That thing is too valuable for a drifter like you."
Kaelen's fingers tightened around Grief's hilt.
He could kill them.
The thought entered his mind as an option so natural, so easy, that it made him sick. A single swing. Just one horizontal slash. The energy of all three would be extinguished, their memories would flow into his mind, and Grief would be sated. The aches in his body would subside.
...do not...
Elara's warning was sharp.
...they are not the enemy. They are only hungry.
Kaelen took a deep breath. He used his will as a shield against the sword's savage hunger.
"Go," he said. "Do not force me."
The men did not listen. Hunger was more dominant than fear.
The one on the far left lunged with a rusted knife.
Kaelen did not draw his sword. If he did, he would not be able to stop. He knew it.
Instead, he surrendered to Groth's lumbering, destructive fighting style. He spun in place, swinging his cloak to obscure the man's vision, and struck the man's chest with the sheathed Grief—that heavy mass of metal.
The sound did not come from bone, but from the sudden absence of breath. The man flew backward like a ragdoll, slammed into the wall, and collapsed.
The other two froze.
"Monster!" the one in the middle screamed. He tried to bring the iron pipe down onto Kaelen's head.
Kaelen tilted his head slightly. The Eye of the Void had seen the trajectory of the attack seconds before as a grey trail. The pipe grazed his shoulder and passed.
Kaelen caught the man's throat with his right hand.
Black veins surged from his arm toward his hand. Smoke rose where he touched the man's skin. Void energy struggled to drain the man's life force. Kaelen's fingers tightened involuntarily. The man's eyes looked as if they would burst from their sockets.
Kill him. Take his strength. Heal.
The voice within—the voice of Grief—was commanding and sweet.
Kaelen ground his teeth. His jaw tensed. "No," he snarled.
He did not kill the man. He threw him into the sewage water like a scrap of cloth.
Seeing the fate of his companions, the last man dropped his knife. His eyes were wide with terror. He stared into Kaelen's right eye, into that bottomless darkness.
"Demon..." the man whispered. "You... you are that tower... that curse."
The man turned and began to flee into the darkness. Kaelen did not move until the splashing of the man's boots faded.
The man lying on the ground, struck in the chest, was moaning. The other he had thrown into the water was coughing, trying to climb onto the bank.
They were alive.
Kaelen pressed a trembling hand to his chest. His heart was racing. Grief had begun to cool in its scabbard, but it felt as though it were resentful toward Kaelen. Its weight upon his back had increased.
"No memories," Kaelen whispered. "Not today."
He continued walking toward the end of the tunnel.
After a while, the air changed. The smell of dampness gave way to dense coal smoke, burnt grease, and the breath of thousands.
The tunnel ended. Before him stood a massive, rusted grate.
Kaelen pushed the grate open—using Groth's strength—and stepped outside.
The view was both breathtaking and nauseating.
The Rust District.
This was not a city, but a metallic tumor.
Buildings were piled atop one another, connected by rusted chains and makeshift bridges. Thick, oily smoke rose from every chimney, swallowing the artificial lights above. Below, in the narrow streets, thousands of people swarmed like ants. The roar of marketplaces, the clatter of hammers striking metal, and the distant wail of sirens mingled together.
Rain did not fall as water here; it fell as a grey sludge mixed with soot and ash.
Kaelen pulled his hood over his head. He looked at the chaos with his left eye, and with his right, he watched the grey flows of energy within it.
"The Crimson Market," he said to himself. Silas had pointed it out. That was the first stop.
But before descending, he looked up.
Far above, where this rusted ocean ended, a white, sterile light seeped through the clouds. The Silver Tower.
Elara was there.
Kaelen reached out into the void, as if he could touch that light.
"I am coming," he said.
Then he bowed his head and cast himself into that rusted abyss, disappearing like a phantom into the crowd.