Mark of the Fool
Chapter 639: The Poisonous Ichor

The longer Alex and his companions explored Uldar’s sanctum, the more he learned about the god of Thameland.

First, it was clear that Uldar surrounded himself with reminders of past glories, both his own, and his Heroes in battle. Second, his sanctum was a place where he spent time entertaining visitors, judging from the vast mead hall laid out with platters of steaming food on long white tables. The room also featured a towering fountain where wine flowed without end. Third, he’d spent his time watching Thameland from a room built entirely of windows.

And fourth, the god had been meticulous, extremely neat and extremely organised. The sanctum was spotlessly clean, a space made completely of white stone, free of dirt, dust, and divinely empowered so even the slightest scuff or blemish on his floors or white halls was erased. His furnishings were opulent, yet perfectly symmetrical, positioned uniformly.

The golden goblets that sat on the lip of the fountain’s basin had been organised at equidistant points, while the spread of food in the mead hall had been neatly arranged on the serving platters.

There wasn’t the slightest bit of disorder or chaos anywhere in the sanctum…

…except for here, where they were now standing.

A white table near the sleeping pool was littered with empty vials and bottles, coloured residue had dried at the bottom of some. Corks were tossed aside haphazardly, liquid had dripped on the tabletop, staining the surface. The mess stood out like a sore thumb, considering the orderliness of the other rooms, though the table wasn’t the only spot covered in clutter.

Dozens of white towels were strewn on the floor, smeared with dried black ichor. Near the pool, glass buckets sat, filled with the same black substance; numbers had been etched along the side of each one, recording the volume of the contents.

Isolde sniffed the air near the bottles. “You were right, Watcher Hill, that strong scent of medicine is coming from these, not the water…and look at the stains on the table and floor. They appear to be from that foul ichor.”

“That’s weird,” Alex said. “This place has been cleaning up every bit of dirt we leave behind…why wouldn’t it clean up that stuff? And why wouldn’t Uldar clean up those bottles and towels? Everything else in this place is pretty much bordering on obsessively neat and clean.”

Brutus growled at the towels, taking a step toward them.

“No, Brutus.” Theresa grabbed one of his bone spikes, pulling him back. “Stay away from there.”

“Yeah, good call,” Grimloch growled. “The stuff in those buckets smells…familiar.”

All eyes turned to him.

“Familiar, how?” Cedric asked. “Where’d y’ever smell somethin’ like that?”

“Couldn’t smell it off the dried stuff, but those buckets? They stink kinda like…” he paused, his black doll-like eyes fixed on the substance. “When my sister and I were really young, we were out playing on the reef. Well, she was playing. I was stuffing my face.”

His voice dropped lower, a deeper growl entering it. “Deep in the ocean…there’s no light; her race and mine can see in the dark, so it’s fine but…” he paused again.

Alex couldn’t remember the last time Grimloch had strung so many words together in a row.

Or any time when his voice had sounded so troubled.

“...I swam around a corner, chasing a fish; then I saw light. Big glowing light,” he growled. “Maybe a hundred and fifty feet in front of me and up. Any of you ever heard of a Sea Banshee? That’s what you land folk call them.”

Khalik swore. “By the Sapphire Sea!”

“What’s that?” Hart asked, looking between them.

“It’s a kinda jellyfish.” Grimloch explained. “They’re huge, enormous, with bodies as big as Vesuvius’ and tiny tentacles no wider than a thread, but they’re stronger than steel, and nearly a thousand feet long. They carry venom in those tentacles that can kill just about anything that moves. The one we saw that day—before my sister pulled me away—had a bunch of mermaids, some tuna and a whale shark in its tentacles. I’ll never forget the smell of that venom.”

He nodded to the buckets. “And that stuff there? Smells close enough. I bet you a bucket of it could kill everyone in here that’s not Claygon.”

Silence washed over the group.

“Venom…” Merzhin muttered. “Does that mean somebody poisoned Uldar? Did a disease take his life? What could make a god sick?”

“I dunno…” Thundar grunted, looking around the room. “I don’t know much of anything right now. I mean, every room we walk into, I just end up with more questions. How did he die? How long did he live? When did he die? Who was he expecting?”

He scratched his head. “This feels like one of those whodunnit plays, except there’s no butler to blame stuff on. It’s always the damned butler, in those.”

“His guest could have done it,” Merzhin suggested. “But…Uldar was so mighty. How does this even happen?”

“I dunno,” the minotaur repeated. “And I don’t think we’re gonna learn the reason from anything we’ve seen in this place so far.” He snorted. “Did anyone notice any other rooms? Anything we missed?”

They looked at each other.

“No,” Watcher Hill said. “I saw nothing.”

Murmurs of agreement followed.

“But this doesn’t make sense,” Tyris frowned. “Merzhin, this Uldar was a warrior, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was,” Merzhin said. “He fought a great many beasts and enemies of Thameland in his young days. He defeated all of them, as well as the very first incarnation of the Ravener.”

“Then where are his weapons?” the battlemage wondered.

“What?”

“Where are his weapons?” Tyris repeated. “Listen, my father was a warrior when he was young, and he still keeps his weapons displayed in our house. He’s got a room full of them: polished swords, spears, shields, his kit for his horse, his lances…everything. It’s like a shrine to his younger days.”

“The man sounds awesome. I see where you get it from,” Hart said.

Tyris gave him a look. “Big compliment coming from someone like you.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Can you not flirt now?” Drestra interrupted. “Really. Try to hold back a little. I know we’re all high on having survived the battle, and I bet there’s at least eight people here who’d like nothing better than to climb each other like trees—”

Theresa and Alex, as well as Isolde and Cedric threw each other quick glances that immediately turned to flaming red cheeks.

Thundar burst out laughing.

“—and that includes me—” Drestra said.

Thundar choked on his own spit.

“—but now’s not the time. Go on, Tyris, go on with what you were saying. I think you had a good point.”

The battlemage didn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed. Nor did the Champion.

“There’s a right time for everything,” Tyris grinned. “But my point is, if Uldar was a warrior, then where did he keep his weapons?”

“A god does not need weapons,” Merzhin said. “...necessarily. But Lord Uldar did portray himself holding weapons in his paintings.”

“Exactly,” Tyris continued. “So what happened to them? Did he throw them away? He should have a trophy room or an armoury or…something!”

“And weapons are not the only thing that is missing.” Isolde frowned at the medicine bottles. “Where is his library and his laboratory?”

“What do you mean?” Alex said.

“These medicines were crafted through alchemy. Or at least they seem to be,” Isolde said. “How did he make them if there is no lab?”

“I follow you, but let me just challenge that for a moment,” Alex said. “Maybe he just…willed the potions into existence? We have no idea what the limits of his powers were.”

“True, and that could explain the potions. But what of the glyphs in the throne room?” Her blue eyes flashed. “You said they were very intricately crafted and that delicate alchemy went into them; why bother with that at all if he could just will miracles into existence? It seems to me that Uldar was something of a wizard. He most likely practised alchemy.”

“Which means there’s got to be an alchemy lab somewhere.” Alex slammed his fist into his palm. “Well, probably. We can’t jump to conclusions yet, but I think you’re onto something.”

“Maybe not. A god would not need something so mundane as an alchemy laboratory,” Merzhin countered. “Even magic items can be created by the gods through their divine power…within limits.”

“That is true,” Isolde said. “But again, why bother crafting glyphs? I could see him willing a sword or a piece of armour into existence for battle: those are portable. But this entire sanctum is filled with Uldar’s divine power, according to you. Why not make voice recordings that simply activate through his divinity instead of bothering with glyphs?”

Merzhin fell silent, frowning.

“Well, look, we’re not going to get much more information out of his sleeping chamber. I want to check those murals along the stairwell,” Thundar said. “They show all the Heroes, maybe we’ll get a clue about what’s going on through them. We’ve already figured out that there used to be a secret Mark of the General.”

“Yes, and I wonder if the Traveller’s mural would be near the bottom of the stairs,” Theresa said. “She was looking for Uldar in her time, and judging from his viewing room,he would probably have known that…that’s…if he was alive then.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Alex said. “Let’s take a look at what the mural from her cycle looked like.”

“Shoulda’ bloody known it’d be somethin’ like this. Are we even near the bottom o’ these stairs?” Cedric asked.

“We’re not even close,” Watcher Hill said.

“Well, now I know why it took so long for us to notice these murals in the first place.” Alex rubbed his hand along a blank wall.

The group had returned to the staircase that led to the sanctum from Uldar’s Rise. Tyris had reunited with her massive tortoise, and everyone was heading downstairs, examining the murals as they went along until they reached a spot where they abruptly stopped. The rest of the way down, the walls were completely blank.

Merzhin swallowed loudly. “Anyone think Uldar died before he could complete more of these murals?”

“That is the most likely explanation,” Isolde said. “And if that is the case, then Uldar has been dead for a long time. A very long time.”

Her words left a chill running down Alex’s spine. “How long have we been just playing out the same fight against the Ravener over and over again, thinking that Uldar was there watching over us. Helping us. When the only thing watching over us was a damned corpse?”

“We could find out by counting the murals above us,” Khalik suggested. “At least that could provide us with a good estimate.”

“Excellent idea,” Watcher Hill said. “That blank space will throw things off somewhat, but the murals should still give us a reasonable idea as to when he died.”

Slowly, they made their way back up the stairs, counting murals.

“One…two…three…five…” Claygon counted out loud.

They kept going.

“Ten…twelve…fourteen…” the golem continued.

They were coming closer to the upper landing.

“Nineteen…”

They reached the blank space on the wall.

“There are…six more cycle murals…after the blank space…” Claygon said. “If the murals stopped when Uldar died…then he died roughly…” He paused. “How many years between cycles again?”

Merzhin was as pale as a ghost. “A hundred years between each cycle. That means, our god died twenty five hundred years into the Ravener cycles.”

“…d’you know how many cycles there’ve been, Merzhin? Alex asked nervously.

The Saint took a deep breath. “The church does not have complete records for each cycle. Some cycles are very bad, but most estimates suggest that there’ve been just over sixty cycles in Thameland’s history.”

Silence.

“The church school didn’t tell us that,” Theresa said quietly. “They said that it’s hard to know for sure.”

“Yes.” Merzhin said. “That is true, but estimates indicate that sixty is likely the most accurate number.”

“Oi, oi, oi,” Cedric said. “Y’mean t’tell me that…this shite has been goin’ on f’somethin’ like six thousand years an’ bloody Uldar might've been dead fr’over half ov’ ‘em?”

“Thirty-five hundred years,” Isolde murmured. “The same scene has been repeated for thirty five hundred years since he died.”

“This is. This—” Merzhin sat down on the steps, putting his face in his hands. “This cannot be. He has been dead for so long? We have been alone for so long?”

Thundar grunted, shaking his head. “Damn hard to take. By my ancestors.”

“Well, now we have an idea of when he died,” Khalik said. “But perhaps there is more we can learn. Come now, might there not be a secret doorway hidden in the sanctum? Somewhere we missed? Actuall—”

The prince paused.

“—I think I know where we should check next.”

“Where?” Alex asked. “Did you think of something?”

“Many royal leaders have hidden passages that lead from their castles to safety. Do you know where those passages tend to be?”

“Where?”

Khalik’s eyes flashed, his expression sinister.

“Either beneath, or behind the throne.”

“Oh dear,” Isolde said.

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