The Bloody Eye

13

Calmet slumped in his chair with his head on his writing table. The one-eyed heretic was surrounded by scroll cases of every description stacked haphazardly to either side. Some of the cases were carved from human bone, others were silver, and some merely wood. Some had arcane markings on them, others had carvings of horrifying rituals, and others mere words. They ranged from staggeringly ancient to new. Some Calmet had stolen from the Soldiers of the Sun, the military and monastic order dedicated to Pelor from which Calmet had split.

The cleric had been scrutinizing every scroll, tome, and artifact he could assemble in his search for a solution. Between the gold he had embezzled from his former sect and the gold they had mined during the past few years, he had been able to purchase or commission more sacred, arcane, and damned artifacts than he had ever dreamed possible. Yet, he still couldn't find the answer to his problem. He could find no plan, spell, source of power, or anything else that could help him meet the crushing deadline he faced.

If he didn't figure out a way to finish tunneling into the sacred shrine by the solstice, he knew that the best he could hope for was that Laud would have him fed to the violet fungi and shrieker guarding his inner sanctum. He had walked by the disintegrating corpse of the last unfortunate sacrifice earlier in the day, and felt a flash of pity for the poor, dead slave. Laud could certainly think of more painful ways to express his displeasure if Calmet failed his unforgiving mentor.

"Where there is power, there is Gruumsh!" asserted the heretic, even though he and the homunculus were the only beings in the cavern, and the homunculus communicated with his master by telepathy rather than speech. He sat up and grabbed a piece of stretched skin with faded brown uncials painted onto it and read aloud.

The Eye that cannot see is the Eye that will comprehend.

The Eye with no feeling is the Eye that will judge.

The Eye that cannot move is the Eye that will rule.

Until the Eye that cannot see shall fill with light

And until the Eye that cannot move has been moved,

There shall no Power be.

He reflected on eyes, literal and figurative, of which he had known or heard. His troubled cogitation awakened memories of city gates, spies, narrow inlets, round openings, and gems. Calmet remembered when his own eye was sacrificed. Laud had pricked the eye with the silver dagger and said something like the first line. Perhaps, the ancient oracle referred to those who had given their left eyes, willingly or unwillingly, in Gruumsh' service? That was a possible interpretation. Indeed, it was Laud's preferred interpretation, but it didn't ring true with Calmet. Feeling may have been reduced in his empty eye socket, but if it was touched deeply enough, there was still feeling. He knew that from the times that the cold had penetrated his deformity and caused icy headaches to clamp around his brain like one of the screwlike devices Laud used to torture unwilling informants. Physical sight may have been bartered for spiritual insight, as Laud had claimed, but there was still feeling, and that meant the oracle was not referring only to the servants of Gruumsh.

Calmet preferred to believe that the Eye was an artifact. It might be a carved eye of jade, reflecting the green glow that often accompanied manifestations of Gruumsh's power. It might be a banner with Gruumsh's eye depicted on the unfurled standard. Calmet doubted that. A banner with an eye depicted on it would not be known as an eye, but as the bearer of the eye or the symbol of an eye. Calmet's theory was that the eye with no feeling was a necklace with a sacred stone that looked like an eye. After all, the prophecy stated that the eye could not see, but it would fill with light.

His concentration was diverted when someone spoke. It was not the telepathic warning often radiated by the homunculus, but as though someone had whispered his name. A shiver ran across the priest's body like rivulets of cold perspiration and he clearly heard Laud whisper, "Meet me in the main passage, immediately."

The apostate priest shuddered. Archprelate Laud was a significant distance away from him, but the elder priest had still managed to summon Calmet from his inner sanctum. Calmet felt stripped and violated as if he were one of the slaves being disciplined in front of the others. A sense of helplessness stirred through his mind and body and the once proud priest, the apostate who abandoned the sun god for the dark promise of power, slumped in despair.

He had hoped to solve his problem. He had hoped that somewhere in his pile of scroll cases, uncials, palimpsets, and manuscripts, he could find some magical substitute for his shortage of slave labor. If he could solve the oracle, he hoped he could determine what Laud planned to do. None of that had happened. He was neither sure that the archprelate's interpretation of the oracle was correct, nor sure that his alternative interpretation could show him what needed to be done. Calmet hoped to find a key to the ancient secret that might finally enable him to accomplish his dual purpose-gaining revenge on Laud and learning to use Gruumsh's power to create a stable society, one that he would rule benevolently but absolutely.

"Grant me Power," breathed the apostate to the dark god he had substituted for Pelor. "Grant me Power that I may act in Power!"

Suddenly, he grasped at a fleeting inspiration and grabbed two scroll cases as he left the cavern. He passed the fungi, observing them as they continued to disintegrate the unfortunate slave. As the shrieker started its piercing song, he absent-mindedly passed a hand in front of his mouth and whispered the celestial word, "Pacis."

The very air around the fungi and the victim melting away from their acids shimmered with a hint of translucency. The translucency fell like a thin membrane, forming a dome over the fungi. The membrane assumed the shape of a dome, and its circumference quickly touched the ground. Perfect silence replaced the shrill, sonic attack.

Calmet could still see the shrieker waving behind the nearly invisible dome of his spell, but he was glad to be rid of the irritating effect of the plant's screaming. The shrieker had seemed an ideal guardian for his inner sanctum, but since Laud had penetrated Calmet's privacy with some kind of whispering spell, the fungi seemed more nuisance than useful sentry.

The priest retraced his steps, carefully avoiding the traps that protected his chosen asylum and made his way past other perils to the main mine shaft. He was bothered by the fact that he didn't hear many picks and shovels at work as he neared the expected end of the shaft. He became even more bothered by the fact that the dust was becoming thicker, almost alive, as he neared his destination.

He turned the last corner and stopped abruptly. His nightmare suddenly became worse. The shaft ended in a massive cave-in. Slaves were digging frantically to get their comrades out of the suffocating dust and rock that buried them alive. It was clear that many of the slaves, Calmet's precious few slaves, had died in the accident. It was also clear that he was not the only one who realized what a setback this was to the plan. Laud stood, eyeing him, waiting to see how his underling would respond to the disaster.

Calmet took in the panic and devastation in one glance. He shuddered under Laud's obvious disapproval. Finally, his fear of what the archprelate might do to him lit a tinder box of energy inside him. He came forward and touched both hands to the dislocated earth and began vocalizing sounds from deep within-a language unknown to anyone else within the tunnel. Energy pulsed outward from his hands and the soft earth and rock gyrated with motion, brown waves as though a gentle wind were blowing across a small body of water. The soil rippled and coalesced in the form of three creatures animated from the earth and stone of the landslide. Calmet felt a brief bit of warmth within as the formation of the creatures in the soil itself reminded him of a creation story he had taught as a priest of Pelor. The earth and stone whirled and rose from the mine shaft floor until there stood three creatures, roughly the height of dwarves. Slowly, each of the three earth elementals turned to face the apostate priest, torchlight glimmering off their feldspar eyes.

Calmet spoke again in the strange tongue, a language understood only by the summoned elementals who were to serve as Calmet's temporary minions. He ordered the elementals to move enough earth and stone to free the slaves that were living and to clear the way for work to continue. At first, the apostate was pleased with his response to the crisis. Then, as he observed the dark frown on Laud's face and realized how high the death toll would be, he slumped again in mounting depression.

The priest steeled himself and turned to face his mentor. Fortunately, his speech came out more confidently than he had expected it might.

"Never fear, Your Potency," asserted Calmet, "the tunnel will be complete by solstice. We'll make our way to Scaun in time for the ritual if my men and I must kidnap every traveler and every villager within leagues."

The archprelate was furious. "Imbecile!" shouted the older man. "Peloran peasant! Were you so busy undoing the consequences of your idiocy that you failed to notice the source of your undoing?"

"What…" stammered Calmet, "I mean, what do you mean. Your Potency?"

"You fool!" continued the archprelate, "You meddling incompetent! The cave-in was caused by sympathetic vibration. Think about it-sympathetic vibration such as we use in some of our most powerful spells. Your slaves were trying to work their way through solid rock and it destabilized your entire construction. There could be more than a hundred feet of rock separating the sanctuary from us. No matter how much labor you enslave, we will be faced with the same problem. As they chip away at the rock, the vibration will destroy the tunnel."

Calmet turned and faced the solid outcropping of rock at the end of the passage. Suddenly, he realized that all was not hopeless. He was aware, by Gruumsh's power, of something that Laud, in his angry pessimism, had failed to consider. Indeed, it was something the former priest of Pelor's own conscious mind had failed to consider before he grabbed those scroll cases prior to leaving his private cavern retreat. Fortunately, his subconscious was far ahead of his conscious mind.

Calmet walked deliberately to the tunnel's dead end, ignoring the continuing imprecations and pejoratives being voiced by the angry archprelate. Standing next to the rock face at the end of the passage, the heretic bent down next to a bucket of recently excavated dirt. He ordered a guard to pour the contents of his waterskin into the bucket and using one hand, he reached down to massage the dirt into a moist clay. Opening one of the scroll cases he had brought with him, he began to simultaneously mold the mud into the wall and read the scroll in the echoing sing-song style of a holy, or perhaps unholy, ritual. The scroll disappeared with a hissing sound and an animated motion as if it were being rolled up into the atmosphere itself.

Continuing to chant the words he had just read, the evil cleric felt the hard rock ooze under his touch as though he could carve out a smaller passage with his bare hands. The colors of disparate minerals in the rock face receded to the dull brown of mud. He continued chanting and moving his hand through the stone like a potter shaping a water jug. In a few minutes, a new passageway roughly the height of an adult hill giant was formed. Its width was equal to its height and it was soon apparent that the depth was equivalent.

The archprelate was quiet. Sometime during the ritual, the elementals had returned to their plane of origin, but the slaves were quietly continuing to rescue their fellows who were still alive. Calmet was oblivious. He grabbed the other case and opened it. He performed the same ritual so that when the chanting was done, he had achieved a near identical result. In a remarkably short time, the cleric had drilled closer to the underground sanctuary at Scaun than his multitude of slaves could have excavated in days.

"Impressive," complimented the archprelate softly and calmly, belying his surprise at Calmet's overdue inspiration. "Now, we can have your slaves shore up your tunnel and continue working. Tomorrow, we'll both pray for the use of that spell."

It was Calmet's turn to be surprised. The archprelate lifted his own unholy symbol of Gruumsh and sounded the most infernal syllables that had ever come to Calmet's ears. The medallion melted in the hierarch's hand and dripped to the ground with a sizzling hiss. The ground shook and a prodigious wind rushed past Laud and over the corpses of the lost slaves. Calmet watched in stunned amazement as the unnatural wind forced its way into the mouths of the dead, who rose as an undead army. Their living comrades shrank away from them as far as possible within the confines of a working gang's chains and many simply sank to the ground in fear.

"See that they do a better job of building the tunnel this time," commanded Laud, "I can't do that again and I see no reason to chase after new slaves when there are plenty here."

"Yes, Your Potency," responded the priest.

"I realize you needed scrolls to get this far, but I'll expect to see you repeat this progress in the morning," Calmet's demanding superior continued.

The older priest turned and left the tunnel with a dramatic and forceful stride, leaving his last instructions to be an indistinguishable combination of threat and command.

Calmet grimaced against the putrefaction of his new zombie slaves and gave orders to keep the construction moving. Then, he retraced his steps to appeal to his new god for more spell power than he'd ever had before. He supposed that fear was the mother of innovation. He'd never thought of a stone shape spell as an aid to the tunneling operation before. It seemed far too mundane to use divine power for something slaves could do. It was only when he contemplated the tunnel as an entrance to Gruumsh's shrine and not as a simple mine that he thought of using the scroll. Then, when laud threatened him, it merely seemed natural to use the power to save his skin. Today, he used the power of a scroll. Tomorrow, he would petition Gruumsh for the spell itself.