The Temple of the Green Stone Men, Part 2
Short Story
Part 1: the oasis - a song for the alraunes - the key to the water road - the statues - the lure - the stairs
PART 2
teeth - the bathing chamber - a slave and sword - dark passageways - a glimpse - to the heart
The entrance to the temple, mouth-like, breathed cool upon Antothos, the teeth high above his head were bright with sparkles as if they might drip saliva. He assured himself it was all a trick of the light, a very clever portcullis, the architect’s imitation of a living thing, but nothing more. Still, he forced himself to look ahead, to ignore the tickle at the back of his neck—had he been dripped on?—the green cloaked and painted men to either side of him didn’t seem to notice his glance upward, leading him to the interior of the temple.
One man walked fluidly off to the right, to light a wide, shallow brazier, and Antothos recognized the scent of the smoke as being a match to what they burned on the shoulders of the stone giants. Some local wood—but they were in the middle of a desert—or perhaps a tallow-like substance, it gave hints of oil and tar and clove, but wasn’t nearly so unpleasantly overbearing as the bloodwater of the oasis.
The brazier lit the space. There was almost nothing but smooth stone floor, great round pillars. Rows of more unlit braziers and sconces, chandeliers hanging cold from a high, shadowed cieling, all the details gone as if seen through murk.
“You may remove your mask,” the man holding the torch said. His voice had changed since Antothos heard it on the stairs—the sound itself was shallow, without an echo. The firelight glowed off the stone floor to show a strange, patternless variation of squares—and Antothos was not floating on air—the room was no hallucination, and yet the words spoken did not bounce.
The man smiled, perhaps noting Antothos’ hesitation. “You see we are all alive and healthy, though I know travellers like yourself are sometimes wary of ‘miasmas’ and the like. Go on—if you choke, you may don it again with my sincerest apologies, and we shall try to make it right.”
Antothos wanted to laugh. Well, the more he cooperated, the easier his mission... He must behave as a pilgrim, not as a suspicious tourist. The seals sucked at his skin, the latches clicked back, bits of sand fell. His eyes adjusted as the air settled on his cheeks. His breathing was fine, and his guide nodded and switched which hand held the torch, to keep the smoke from Antothos, and they walked on. The other men had gone without making their departure known.
His guide lit a succession of braziers until a strip through the hall glowed orange over the greens, not unlike the desert sky. They came to a broad set of aged-copper doors, etched with what appeared to be calligraphic script, though Antothos didn’t recognize it—in his briefing on the locals, it must’ve been skipped. The curves of each line seemed to depict the flow of water rather than a language to be spoken aloud.
Raising his arms in a wide vee, the guide began chanting. A strangled growl—but it had words, brutish and coarse phrases, perhaps an oath or prayer. The doors parted by some unseen mechanism, Antothos supposed. Beyond was a smaller chamber, and he was led through. The doors whispered shut behind them as his guide began lighting sconces. They were the only sources of light. In the centre of the room was a round pool.
“You will bathe here,” the guide said. “I will take your clothes, your gear and your weapon. They’ll be waiting for you,” he pointed to another door of wood and copper, across the pool, “just there.” He smiled, and Antothos could see the paint on the man’s face crack, revealing greyish skin beneath the green. “You’ll have cleansed just in time for bells, how lucky!”
What an absurd thing, Antothos thought. Lucky, or unlucky, it mattered not—so long as he was able to meet the Lady of the temple before the question of his luck was answered. To play at belief—he was a pilgrim overflowing with trust, after all—Antothos undressed after an accidental stare, the absurdity of luck one matter, trusting this man to take his belongings another.
More sand, small pieces of sedge fell beneath him. The skin that had been exposed to the siren’s blood had turned a sick purple, lines of black more like worms than veins. Before he approached the pool, his guide left through the far door, which opened and shut like any other door—by hand, a small lever, and Antothos listened for a click of a lock. None came.
The water was warm and clear. He remembered his briefing on local ritual, and dunked fully into the water before scrubbing himself properly, throat, hair, feet, wincing over the burns.
The low door opened—Antothos froze, half out of the water, hand at his hip for a sword that wasn’t there.
But the sword came through the gap, hilt-first. Then a hand, arm, and the rest of a man dressed in a grey robe, face mostly hid in the shadow of the hood, skin painted to match the drab cloth.
“Who are you?” Antothos asked. His voice didn’t echo, either. Not so much as a bounce over the water.
The man lowered his head. “I am called Tern, and I am a slave. You need not fear me. This, I believe, is the object you most hesitated to part with. And this,” he held up the key, “is what gave you away.” His tone had changed, and Antothos’ cheeks heated to be so mocked. “You’re as much a pilgrim as I am a slave, but let us play our parts well enough for a standing ovation.” He laid the sword down on the floor with an overproduction of servitude before standing upright, lit well by a sconce. He was tall, thin, a long sharp face. There was a glint in Tern’s eyes unlike what Antothos had seen in the other men—he risked an assumption that this man was a traveller like himself.
“Why return them to me?”
Tern shrugged. “It was all going to be thrown—you understand my meaning?—and so I saved it from the belly.”
“Belly?”
A crooked smile flaked the paint. “Apologies—the furnace, forge, whichever you prefer. If I were you, I’d try to pick up on the local lingo. It’s in the ‘belly’ of the place. You’ll be going there, too, unless you take this.” He reached under his robe to pull out another, matched. “If I was a slave they’d kill me for a thief. They might kill me anyway. I care not. You might, if they try. You look to me like a man with some sort of care. It doesn’t concern me what it is. Now,” he pulled a small flask from a pouch at his hip, “you must be wetted—er, painted, before you come with me.”
“You don’t care at all who I am, or why I’m here—that’s wise of you. I might kill you, if I have reason to.”
“You wouldn’t have that key if you were an innocent man. Will you take the robe?”
Despite himself, Antothos was beginning to find Tern amusing. “If I don’t?”
“Belly-up.”
***
Tern might have once been a traveller, but his knowledge of every secret crack and crevice proved he had been living within the temple for many years. From the bathing chamber there was a weave of passages, hidden by loose stones they had to carefully shift. In some places they could stand, some they crawled, but always they moved as silently as they could. Every path was blind dark but for the glow of Antothos’ false key, the smooth, glassy disc, which Tern held out.
Eventually they came to another room with a pool, a crack behind an unlit sconce revealed a slice. The water steamed. Petals floated upon the surface, a blanket of pinks and purples—Tern pulled Antothos’ sleeve to get his attention.
“Wait here,” Tern said. A few yards from the gap Tern disappeared in the dark. The field of Antothos’ vision into the room was too narrow, but he could hear the clinking of metal against glass. Whatever Tern was doing, it was taking too long.
A woman, very tall and slender, strode naked and graceful to the pool. An unseen door creaked shut, and she descended into the water. Her green-painted skin and hair contrasted so naturally with the petals on the surface, sticking to her in bunches, she became a bouquet, a garden made human. If she was a statue, she was one that succumbed to the beauty of decay—still emanating the wondrous craft of the artist, the youth and pride of her features, but softened by layers of moss and vines, full of life upon her stone—but she was all the life in the room, as she sank languidly further into the water, until only her face rimmed by petals was seen above the surface. Antothos was reminded of the siren, and expected a deadly song.
None came, and he almost cursed in surprise to see Tern, fully in his role as slave, appear from the right with a tray of flasks. He knelt at the edge of the pool, and in a way that seemed ritualistic, poured the contents of each flask around the woman’s face.
It was these oils that helped the paint slough off the woman’s skin, out of her hair, and soon the petals were coated in a grey-green foamy slick, and all the beauty of them faded, given to her. She was pale, yet radiant… The resemblance to the siren was changed, stronger yet lesser, by the time Tern returned to Antothos’ side, a pang of disappointment that he hadn’t the chance to hear a song.
“Do you want to get out of here, or not?” Tern whispered. He had said something else, but Antothos missed it. He hummed agreement anyway. They began creeping along into darkness again, and after long minutes of quiet, Tern continued: “I mismeasured the ingredients, she’ll be there longer than usual. It’ll help delay the bells.”
“I—no, I’m not to leave until—”
“Until the temple itself consumes you and your soul joins the grains of sand and you become nothing which is where you came from and—and whatever other manure you’re supposed to believe—”
“You know I am no pilgrim—”
“And that explains the shoddy cloak you dragged with you. Better to come naked than to look like you’re trying to impress someone out of your league.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I gave you back your sword. I figured there was a reason you risked bringing it to this ‘sacred’ place. Tell me now what the reason is, and I’ll tell you how to see the Lady again.”
Antothos’ eyes widened at the word “again.” It was too dark in their hiding place for Tern to notice—he hoped.
“You’re dressed as a slave, now. If you weren’t an actor before, you are one now. And I think you have some knowledge of this place, but only what’s leaked out. I doubt you’re a spy, or you wouldn’t have walked in with an escort of devils. They weren’t going to send you to witness the bells, but to participate. Understand?”
“What does it matter to you?”
“Everything matters to me in this place. If I were indifferent to the goings-on, it would be impossible to hate it so much. You were stupid enough—or bold, if you prefer—to come armed, and they noticed. Were you not told of their oaths? But that stupidity—well, I’d like to see what other stupid things we can do—”
Antothos pressed his hand over Tern’s mouth, impatient with all the rambling. “You misunderstand, and you presume much. I care not for your hatred, or temple politics. I’ve got a job to do. You’ve helped me a great deal so far, but I warn you, do not continue that train of thought.”
In a space of three breaths, Tern’s face relaxed and Antothos removed his hand.
“I get a little carried away,” Tern said, a nervous laugh. “But you have trusted me to get you out of that room, to show you around, so you must have some suspicions…”
“Of you?”
“Everything.”
Breathing deep, Antothos straightened his back as best he could. It was all dust in the cramped corridor. No perfumes or smoke, yet there was heat. “How deep into the temple are we now?”
“Near the heart. No, not the centre. Where it beats. The water.”
That made so little sense to Antothos he could only shake his head. But the pool she had bathed in… the water was hot enough to steam. So, if they were near the source… “Will you take me to the heart? If all you want is to cause mischief, will you take me where I ask?”
“Well… Within reason. I saved you to annoy them. Take you to the heart?” The air moved with Tern’s shrug. “I’ll find us a key. A better one than this.
“The stones will sing to ring the bells. The Lady is likely moving on, now. Come—We’ll need better disguises. Neither of us will want to be slaves for the bells. Especially when they notice you didn’t melt into soup like you were supposed to. That’ll make them all very cross. My compliments.”
End of Part 2
Time is going by way too fast this summer, but isn’t that always how it goes? Kind of like word counts… so, apologies for posting this a bit later than I thought I would.
I had initially “planned” for this story to only be a couple parts—I got a bit carried away. The dangers of pantsing. Part 3 coming soon! (How many “parts” before it qualifies as a serial?)
I might revisit this later, maybe do a “TotGSM: REDUX” months down the road, as you’re all witnessing a first draft, essentially. In the meantime, I think it’s pretty rad that you’re experiencing how this unveils in a sort of “real time” process.
Why does Tern so quickly take Antothos from the room? What’s the deal with the big alien dudes outside? It gets weird (because of course it does) so hold on to your butts!