Past the balustrade, there is a steep drop. You are not certain how far, but somewhere below, something is reflecting the light of your match. It is from there that the nearest ticking seems to derive, although other noises echo back from further out.
After between one and two seconds you hear a minute tinkling noise below, indicating the floor of the space beyond to be anywhere from sixty to one hundred feet or twenty to thirty metres down.
You catch yourself looking for handholds on the wall below the balustrade, then chide yourself for entertaining such a ridiculous notion. Even if there were any indentations in the wall, assuming that there even is a wall leading all the way down, your shoes would surely slip, and you are fairly certain that you have no climbing experience whatsoever, at least not of that kind. Heights do not particularly bother you, and you do vaguely remember being good with ladders and trees, but cliff faces are a very different matter.
It does sound like fun, though. And that ticking noise confounds you.
Your first match burns out as you are contemplating this. You hear yourself curse involuntarily as the dying flame reaches your fingers and you drop the stub to the cold stone floor.
Using a certain amount of ingenuity (and your teeth), you manage to light another match and head out along the balustrade in search of a staircase, making sure to keep a general idea of how far you are from the column, and consequently from the case and the corridor.
You realise after following the balustrade a fairly long way that it is gently curving, as if around the circumference of a vast circular chamber. Perhaps, you think, you are in a very big church, or some kind of enormous government building. But what sort of cathedral or forum is this?
After some time walking, you pass another huge column, and then come upon an equally enormous staircase. One half leads up, one down. The steps are very big.
You take the downward stairs slowly and carefully so as to neither trip or be caught off-guard. The staircase is of the spiral variety, albeit a very large example of the type, curving around a vast column nearly twice the diameter of the last two.
As you descend, you notice small stone arches in the balustrade along the outside of the staircase. Logically speaking, these should lead into thin air, and yet you think that you see something beyond each of them.
It seems that there is a cylindrical structure backing the arch that you did not see, akin to a little turret. Within, there is a small room lit by candles. At its far end is a slit-like window over what appears to be a small shrine; and in its centre there is a very narrow spiral staircase.
The room is a bit bigger than you thought that it was on looking in, about the size of a large janitorial closet. The room is ringed with a long, circular wooden shelf, on which long blue tapers sit in silver candlesticks on highly reflective platters. There are not too many candles, but the brightness of the flames and the metal illuminates the room rather well.
The central stair is a little less narrow than you had previously thought, but wide and steep enough to accommodate you should you choose to descend. It is made of what might be wrought iron, although the colour strikes you as too bluish. The working is simple yet loving.
The apparent shrine sits upon a low, very darkly varnished chest of drawers. It consists of a curious assemblage of artefacts arranged beneath the slit-window, centred on a strange shape under embroidered velvet and a squat box the same hue as the cabinet with bright gold clasps. It is flanked by two large tapers, these black and white respectively, both on gold stick and salvers.
Through the window, you think that you can see something glittering.
You have no idea whether or not you are viewing planets or comets or really anything but just points of light, some coloured but most looking white. As far as your knowledge extends, this is no sky that you have ever seen. It is beautiful, but intensely, frighteningly foreign.
A word pops into your head: Selcouth. How intensely selcouth this sky is.
You decide to write down anything potentially important that comes to mind on the back of the matchbox. As a test, you write down the word "selcouth" at the top with the burnt end of a match. Your handwriting is small and spidery, yet quite legible.
It is at this point that you remember the pen and ink in your pocket.
The shrine is dominated by the shrouded shape, which sits atop a sort of raised platform on the cabinet. It is a little larger than a cantaloupe and roughly wedge-shaped, with strange symmetrical indentations. The plush cloth itself is embroidered with layers of strange designs in dark and pale threads, a kind of double whirling pattern of curved and angled signs hard to discern properly without close inspection. You can make out several sorts of cross, some odd letters, leaves and moons. It must have taken a great deal of time and work.
The box is smaller and infinitely less dazzling, although it has a queer kind of weight to it. Maybe because it is so unadorned, yet so well-tended to: The wood reflects almost like a mirror. The clasps are the only thing to break the smooth surface: The lid does not appear to have hinges.
Other gold objects litter the surface surrounding the box and the draped thing: Strings of beads like gilded rosaries; the frames of icons of strange saints, none apparently human; rings and tiny chains and coins, the latter vaguely resembling the one in your pocket. In their midst are other objects of simpler, less gaudy form: Two tiny alabaster pots or urns; a few little china dishes resembling Japanese sake cups; a little bouquet of dried blue flowers; burnt pieces of paper with strange writing on them.
The tapers are set as the others in the room, but overall larger, with the sticks and plates in gold rather than silver.
Vaguely recalling far too much time spent playing dungeon crawler RPGs in your college years—at least, you think that they were your college years—you decide to drape yourself in sacred jewellery and fill your pockets with plunder. But as you don the gilded accoutrements, you begin to feel a growing unease. This is clearly not an abandoned religious site, and there is something terribly ominous about the whole star window/box/draped mass set-up. And it really does seem a bit of a set-up...
You hear a faint sound from far below.
It is only now that you remember just how bad you were at those sorts of games.
You begin to panic a little. It could be anything coming up those stairs! You attempt to hide beneath the edges of the lengthy ceremonial draperies, but your feet stick out. Given how well-lit the room is, you get the feeling that you will be found out quite quickly. You put your knife forward and wait.
You also become aware that from this vantage, you would easily be able to see what the drape (blanket? shroud?) is hiding if you just looked to the left...
Since you are sitting, it is roughly at eye level and very close.
The head tapers like that of a dog or fox, but there is a flat roundness to the front that suggests something reptilian to you, and for some reason the teeth give you the impression of... a bat? From the back protrude the broken ends of spiralling horns. The eye sockets are shallow, and were almost certainly perfunctory in life. The bone itself is coal-black, yet strangely luminous.
You try to calm down a little. This place and situation are certainly strange, the stars and skull-idol certainly alarming, but so far nothing has directly menaced you in any way. And while anything could be coming up that staircase, whatever it could be would have to be, if not small, than at least reasonably slight.
The sounds are not approaching quickly. You could probably run away without drawing too much attention to yourself. But the absence of the jewellery would be a problem.
You look in the first drawer, of which there are three. Within you find a slim case quite similar to the one that you left back at the carpet in the great hall. There is a fine, very detailed inlay across the lacquer which might be similar to the pattern on the cloth above you, although it is somewhat obscured by shadow.
The second drawer is loosely lined with plain black felt. It contains a number of sharp, shiny objects, two of which appear to be short swords. Their handles are of an odd black leather, somewhat scaly and very smooth-looking; the blades might be white gold. Several small cups and more mysterious instruments in the same style also reside here.
The third and last drawer is the deepest. It contains a large book bound in the same scaly material. Some ragged scrolls and folded vellum manuscripts surround it, but the book is clearly the item of significance here.
Curiously, although on opening none of the shelves are especially deep, none of them are half so shallow as their exterior would indicate. The last, in particular, is easily as deep within as all three appear without.
The steps grow slightly closer. Their gait has not slowed.
You put your knife in an inside pocket in your waistcoat and take the longer of the two swords. It is similar, you think, to a Japanese wakizashi, but there are oddities past the materials: The handle feels like it is meant for two small hands rather than one, and the blade looks tapered and... serrated?
A nasty piece of business. You feel dangerous with it. You like that feeling. You are not sure if you like that you like that feeling.
You picture in your mind the various positions and stances assumed in fencing, karate, even ballet; you must have been quite the dabbler in your childhood. You know that none of these are strictly accurate, but combining certain elements should be useful: A little leap there, a crouch here, the right amount of weight on the left foot. You almost feel in control.
You would feel more in control if you were not crouching beneath an embroidered drop-cloth with a demon skull waiting to be confronted by god-knows-what ascending a very narrow spiral staircase. With your luck, you think, it must be a tiny assassin, or a very tall, thin one with long, noodly limbs of certain death.
You would leave, but panic makes this feel like a bad option. But caution is late coming now, is it not? You have stolen a golden sword, possibly magical and undoubtedly very, very sharp.
You think of obstructing the stairs in some matter, but the cabinet would be far too heavy to move, and disturbing it further would likely only enrage whoever tends it—assuming that it is the keeper ascending those stairs, which seems fair. Of course, being crouched there draped in ritual finery and sacred gold should probably be similarly offensive. Damnably inconvenient, that!
With all the dignity of a frightened rabbit on amphetamines, you flee the room in a kind of high-speed crab walk whilst simultaneously attempting your best impression of Inigo Montoya. It takes longer than you expected, as gold and silver are heavy and you are not particularly strong.
Standing outside in the blackness, you realise that the steps had stopped the moment that you stood up to run. You have no idea what to think of that.
Comments
look for a staircase
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
If not, leg it.
So you wait.
The steps continue, closer.
Standing outside in the blackness, you realise that the steps had stopped the moment that you stood up to run. You have no idea what to think of that.