3 - Altar Cave

Byron was only ten years old when he first suspected some sort of magical essence within him. It had been a crisp autumn day in the year 775 as he sat in the grass behind the cottage of a scholar named Sara Wyse. She had been a colleague of his parents. The Wyse and Levant families, both lines of former nobility, had been friendly for generations, even having intermarried on occasion throughout the years. Sara and her husband had died years ago from Elder’s Fever, and their son, Albranth Wyse who was Byron’s age, had gone on to rise through the tiers of the city council, and currently he served as one of the five governors of Yartha, the highest office. Byron resented him in a way, as his father’s comparisons to the prodigy had plagued him throughout adolescence. 

On that autumn day in 775, a ten-year old Byron Cecil Levant had witnessed his first magical event when Sara Wyse’s entire cottage, and most of the garden, had been completely enveloped by a bright yellow moss of an unknown species, and it had all happened overnight. As Byron’s father held lectures in the halls across campus, he and his mother had walked there to see the spectacle, and to find a crowd gathered around the Wyse families’ modest home. Everyone who had been there, including Byron's mother, Sara Wyse and young Albranth, had complained of a feeling of nausea when they were near the moss, and they had viewed the strange phenomenon from a safe distance across the street.

While the others were occupied in conversation, Byron had crept behind the cottage. He’d approached the fluorescent plant life and had been met without sickness. There had been intricate swirling patterns within it, only visible when as close as he’d been; concentric circles of varying depths that he knew were impossible. The patterns looked as if in motion, and he had sworn that he heard soft voices coming from it, or projected from it into his mind. He’d sat there, transfixed, and was dragged away by his mother, who after pulling him into the street had gagged and vomited there. Crying, Byron had begged her to go back. He’d wanted to hear what the voices had been saying.

Eventually the Yarthanguard had arrived to sanction the area, and after they’d gone home he’d watched from his room in the tower as the house was burned to the ground. The lowborn would say that Sara Wyse was a witch who had brought the moss from the realm of Magaia. A council voted against keeping any samples of the moss, and every bit of it had been destroyed, much to Byron’s horror upon learning much later in life. 

The event had been a catalyst for his interest in the faith of the Earth God, and the fact that both his mother and father had refused to believe that the event had been magical in any way had only intrigued him further. Sara Wyse denied the claims of witchcraft, and the accusations against her were never acted upon by the Towers. She and her husband had later died from Elder’s Fever, leaving Albranth to the care of Sara’s sister. Before long the entire story was reduced to hearsay- surprisingly fast, Byron had noted then, and the adults in his life had seemed content to leave it at that.

Eight years later at the top of Ryli Tower, his suspicions had been cemented. Upon graduation, the new scholars would climb to the very top chamber of the tower where historic relics were kept. In folklore, the things there were said to have come from Magaia. Byron and the others had seen them, they’d been close enough to run and snatch up what was called the Key of Helms from its ivory pedestal- though none did. Wooden troughs had been set up in front of the pedestals, and the recent graduates eyed them and the simple objects on their pedestals with a wary fascination from their grouping at the far end of the chamber.

It was a rite of passage for all young scholars, and while ceremonial, was not an altogether serious occasion for most; there was a lightheartedness to the scholarly ritual. It was, after all only a folk tale, that if one were immune to the sickness of the key and other relics, it implied that they were a "warlock" or a "witch."

It was told to the students at the academy that an immunity to the radiant sickness of the objects, however rare, was practically meaningless, and to Byron’s knowledge no one in the last half century had been immune. No one but him. Visibly to all, the Key of Magaia was nothing but an antiquated brass key, but as his former classmates had gagged and heaved in the room at the tower's apex, some of them spewing vomit into the troughs before them, he had felt nothing. 

He'd nimbly feigned the discomfort they displayed, however, the sweating had been genuine- even the light-headedness. Some had passed out right there in the chamber. Byron desperately wanted everyone to know of his gift, and although he’d felt as if he would burst from it, had suppressed his joy. His immunity had remained a secret- one he had kept for three years now, and one he would choose to keep until he was absolutely positive of its implications.

The relics that still sat at the top of Ryli Tower were each visibly unremarkable- an arrowhead, a locket, a wooden doll- trinkets, really, twelve of them in total, and each of them produced the same effect to the vast majority of humans: being within their vicinity would cause one to break into a sweat, a feeling of nausea to settle in the pit of the stomach. Touching them was worse. For some, there was a loosening of the bowels, or vomiting. The symptoms varied from person to person in intensity; some were more sensitive to the effects than others. It was nothing more than that, they said, and it was so told that the effects would lessen over prolonged exposure. Throughout the ages, the forbidden relics had remained a mystery, even as Yartha's scientific revolution burgeoned.

The most famous of them was the key. It had been the first, discovered in the vicinity of the Springboot Mountains near what Byron now believed to be a magical portal to Magaia and the Earth God's domain, hiding there in the brush-covered foothills. It was where he now headed, dressed and armed in traveling gear after storming away from his father’s castle.

He crossed the River Slybos at Quell Bridge, the northernmost, shortest and in his opinion, the most beautiful of Yartha’s trinity of bridges. Ivory carvings ran the course of its banisters like gentle waves. The sun was in its descent as he walked, and a swarm of gnats hovered his odorous form in the orange light. 

On the eastern half of the city, after wandering through a district where more houses were in disrepair than not, he hiked through the quiet woods of the parklands known as Hundred Trees. The land was a stretch of wilderness in the city's northwest quarter where the Springboot Mountains, really only rocky hills and a crag or two, crept down into the urban sprawl of East Yartha. Over a thousand acres of land- hills and meadows, creeks, a handful of ponds, and the wildlife that hadn't been hunted through. The parkland was considered its own district, and so also was the largest district in Yartha, preserved centuries ago by the Church of Slybbon, whose worshippers occupied many seats of power in the city's government.

Byron thought that the rugged terrain suited Hyne of Earth more than it did Slybbon, the Water Goddess, for although the land was prohibited from being built upon, it was said that the earth was un-lending to even the city's most skilled architects and engineers, and scattered with caves and sinkholes. Byron’s destination on that moonlit night was a particular cave far north into the territory, fittingly called Altar Cave. It was one of the many sites of ancient ruins in the area, either built by a prehistoric people, or by the gods and powerful sorcerers depending on one's belief.

The glow from his ornate oil lantern spread to the thicket around him and cast shadows across the trees and underbrush. As he hiked on, his light became the only light besides the ghostly fluorescence supplied by the moon, filtered through the dense foliage overhead. Behind him somewhere the city and its sounds were gone, and brambles cracked beneath his feet, clad in the fine traveling boots he’d retrieved from his father's castle. Other than an insectile buzzing the woods were silent.

Byron thought of her instructions. Of the caves opening, the witch had written- 'like a small, upturned laughing mouth, between two high shoulders, spitting gravel down a steep and narrow slalom.' He'd been to the cave once, long ago and with a guide, but he doubted that the topography had changed drastically since then, or even in the centuries since Petrastyra's time.

Small animals scattered as he pushed his way through the dry and tangled underbrush of the densely wooded hills. His sense of direction was not good, and more than once he feared he’d become lost, but now even in the dark he felt that the cave was close as he attempted to re-trace her steps. 

He refused to entertain the idea that the journal's claims could be false. I will need sleep soon, he thought, but not until I have stepped upon the altar and spoken the words. Not until I have at least tried.

His trail of thought was broken as he saw through the trees a wide-open clearing of tall grass bathed in moonlight. On the other side where the trees resumed were the low black mountains rising above the woods against the blue-black sky, and what he was sure were the two small peaks, the "shoulders" the witch wrote of.

He giggled softly and began to hike faster, wading through the grass to leave a path behind him as he entered the clearing. He strode through the field and hummed a tune, louder and louder until he raised his arms in the air and made a howling noise at the moon, shrill like his voice. His upturned face, filthy, scratched, and gleaming with sweat, the moon reflected in his eyes. He howled again, and when he was finished saw movement in his periphery.

"A madman," said a voice. "A highborn madman."

Byron turned and saw them at the edge of the clearing- a group of men and women, more than he could count in the dark, a row of blurry forms. They carried no light source. As they approached, and his upraised lantern revealed them, he saw that some were dressed in animal hides, others in torn tunics and breeches in the styles of the city, shadowed dark with grime. 

The heavily-bearded one in front who’d spoken carried a crude wooden spear. All were covered from head to toe in what Byron initially mistook for blood in the moonlight. For a moment his breath had caught in his throat before his mind exposed it as red river clay, a custom from the old ways. The man with the spear shielded his eyes from the light with one hand and held the weapon in front of him. They were the followers of Hyne. The Cult of Earth.

"Praise be to the Earth God, Hyne," Byron said, not embarrassed in the least, expecting them, even. "Well met, brothers and sisters. I was searching for you, but it seems that you have found me, instead. Follow me to the sacred cave, and I will show you that I am no madman. Tonight will be a night of magic and wonder. I shall travel to Hyne's domain, the place the witch Petrastyra called The Lowlands, and I shall return with the ingredients to make rain! Rain the land so desperately needs." He laughed. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

The people shared looks of incredulity. The man with the spear finally spoke. "Who are you, highborn? What do you know of Petrastyra?" When Byron did not answer he went on, "Many have come to this place over the years, claiming to be blessed. None were."

Byron gave him his approximation of a friendly smile. "I am a scholar, my dear brother. It is my job to know! With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

The man squinted at him, the mud cracking at the creases of his eyes. "Xander,” he said shortly. “I was unaware that Petrastyra’s history was a written one. It has been passed by tongue for centuries by the People of Earth."

"All will be explained," Byron said, smiling wide.

The man called Xander gestured with his spear to Byron's ruby-hilted dagger in its scabbard. "You are armed."

"As are you. As is our right. My blade, however, is for the beasts of The Lowlands, of course.” Byron cleared his throat and then addressed them all. "Follow me, I beg you,” he called them, beckoning with one arm. “All will be explained! Come, everyone!" He began to walk without them, and to his partial surprise they did follow him, but only after he’d left the clearing. They kept a safe distance behind as he hiked through the woods to the bones of a shallow creek, then up an incline that became a small ridge. The cave was some distance from the creek- a small black opening in the granite between the two points, just as the witch had described it. Its entrance was triangular where the slabs of rock leaned, total darkness in the space between them. What she had written of as a slalom of gravel had since been made into a tidy dirt path and set of timber stairs, presumably by the people who currently followed behind him, or their forbearers.

Now there was no doubt in Byron’s mind, no consideration that it may be the wrong cave, or worse- that the magical wormhole he believed to be inside had disappeared or faded. He could not afford to dwell on such things. He was on a roll, as his gambling colleagues in the mathematics department would call it. The insects and other night noises called, and there could be heard a gentle swish of the trees in the light breeze. 

He was all nerves, humming and softly giggling. He saw the fresh remains of a campfire on the other side of the creek bed and walked over to inspect it, then waited there for the cultists to arrive. He would require an audience. He grunted as he slid the backpack from his shoulders and set the lamp on the ground by the dead fire, the only semi-level spot of ground on the hillside. Looking out he could see far away the twinkling towers and steeples of Yartha rise against the night sky. 

One-by-one the gaggle of mud-camouflaged figures made their way up to him. Eight in total. Five men and three women, all of varying ages, whispers among them, and the bearded man with the spear in front. Some of them stared at his gas lantern with wonder, ignorant in their seclusion to the advances of their own city. He beckoned them to follow him up the wooden steps to the cave, and there was no objection, but the one called Xander peered coldly at him and was the first to follow behind.

At the top of the stairs Byron ducked his head inside and bent his gangly frame further as he crept toward where the cave opened up. Once in, he slid down a steep but short incline and stood. It was cool inside. The sounds of his boots on the stone were thin, flat-sounding. 

He raised the lantern. The ceiling of the chamber rose maybe thirty feet in diameter and was shaped like the inverse cap of an acorn that sloped downward to the stone ground. In the center was the altar. Its base was a smooth, perfect circle ten feet in diameter, not stone but something else. The base of a crumbled statue stood behind it, weathered or vandalized long ago. According to Petrastyra, it had once been a representation of Hyne, who was commonly described as a tall, broad-shouldered humanoid with a wide mouth and small, beady eyes, but all that was left of the statue were its feet.

One by one the filthy people slid down the incline, helping one another, and soon they were all gathered around the pedestal. Byron stepped up onto the smooth circle and took a deep breath as he turned to them, still holding the lantern, checking his person to make sure all was accounted for. This better work, or I am going to appear quite the fool, he thought to himself, and suppressed a laugh. 

"Await my return," he muttered, then took a deep breath and said the words in a clear and loud voice free of his usual mis-steps and muttering. "Lytum-Sytul."

His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell limp to the pedestal, his face smacking across its hard surface. A tooth dislodged from his mouth and skittered across the altar with a splattered trail of blood. His lifeless eyes stared at nothing, pupils still in dilation.

The people in the chamber gasped, then the lantern's flame was snuffed and they cried out in surprise and fear. Finally, his body began to burn with a ghostly, smokeless, heatless white fire, and their illuminated, shared masks of shock turned to terror. They screamed and fled the sudden pearl-white bonfire that erupted from the altar, scrambling madly up the incline to leave the cave, but Xander stayed holding his spear as he watched as the madman's fine green cloak go up in mystical white flame.

It was followed quickly by the breeches and backpack on the corpse. Its contents spilled out- an old book burned to nothing in the heatless but all-consuming flames. A jar shattered on the pedestal and the glass caught fire and disappeared. The links of his chain shirt melted together and did the same. Soon, all that was left was a glowing white skeleton and a pool of bubbling metal. 

The man with the spear sat down and watched it until the final piece of bone had disintegrated, the last flame flickered out, and the chamber was pitch-black again.