Deus Necros

The smile remained as her eyes begged while the rest of her face refused to move. Behind Ludwig, one of the tribesmen made a broken sound. He pushed past Celine, looked through the frame, and stopped breathing.

”Mother.” The single word barely escaped him.

The elder tribesman turned sharply as a man as old as he was pressed both hands against the white frame. ”Mother!”

Ludwig looked ahead, then back, the woman from the frame could be at most at her mid thirties. The man that cried for his mother... was almost half a foot in the grave. White hair, wrinkles and liver spots all over him.

”Shouldn’t it be daughter? ” Ludwig said to Kaiser who simply jotted something down in his notebook.

The woman sitting beside the window did not react to the sound, but her eyes moved toward him. Recognition appeared slowly, like a thought struggling upward through deep water, and her smile widened.

The elder forced himself closer and looked through the frame. The strength left his face as he saw those he remembered seated among hundreds of silent people. They still looked the same...

A former chief sat before an untouched loaf of bread. His beard was longer and completely white, but his face had barely aged. Beside him rested a woman with her hands folded in her lap. The elder stared at her for several breaths before quietly whispering the name of his wife.

Farther back sat men and women who had vanished when he was young: hunters who had gone looking for the palace, families who had followed stories of warm rooms and endless food, and children who had never returned from expeditions across the dead forests. They had not become corpses or ghosts. They had remained here, alive for an unknown number of years, waiting at tables they no longer possessed the will to leave.

”At first, it gives you everything,” the elder said, his voice trembling. ”Food. Water. Shelter. Safety.”

He looked away from the frame, though the images remained reflected in his eyes. ”Then it asks nothing of you.”

Kaiser’s gaze remained fixed on the distant hall. ”Nothing?”

”No work. No payment. No prayer. No obedience,” the elder explained. ”You are not commanded to stay. You are not punished for leaving.”

Celine looked at the motionless people. ”Then why don’t they?”

The tribesman met her gaze. ”Because after long enough, you stop asking anything of yourself.”

”How come you left?” Ludwig asked.

”It’s best you see it yourself...”

Silence settled over the Watch Hollow as Ludwig looked once more through the frame. The palace did not imprison people. It removed every reason to move.

Hunger was answered before it could become pain, while thirst never lasted long enough to require effort. There was no cold to flee, no predator to fight, no shelter to build, and no responsibility that could not be abandoned.

At first, people would rest because they needed it. Then they would rest because there was no reason not to. Eventually, standing would feel unnecessary. Choosing would become exhausting, and wanting anything beyond what had already been placed before them would become an act too burdensome to complete.

Sloth had not built a dungeon. He had built an ideal world where will itself became obsolete.

Ludwig’s jaw tightened, and Kaiser noticed the movement. ”Beautiful, isn’t it?”

”No,” Ludwig replied without looking at him. His gaze remained fixed on the motionless people.

”It is,” Kaiser insisted. ”That beauty was precisely what made the place so effective”.

”That’s the problem.” Ludwig turned his attention back to the palace.

A bell rang across the chasm, the sound coming from deep within the palace. One clear note passed through the forest and rolled over the abyss.

Every person inside the distant hall turned toward the Watch Hollow. They did not move quickly. Hundreds of heads shifted in slow, uneven motions until their eyes faced the frame, while the woman at the window continued smiling.

The elder tribesman recoiled. ”It knows.”

The bell rang again, and the floor beneath them shifted. Celine moved away from the edge as several white paving blocks slid free from the platform. More rose from beneath the mist filling the chasm, ascending without sound and arranging themselves in the open air.

One cube settled beyond the platform, another attached to it, and then another followed. A long walled white path began extending across the abyss.

The tribesmen below noticed, and their voices rose in panic. Several backed toward the altered road as if they had already forgotten what waited there.

”It knows we looked!” one of them shouted.

”The path is opening!” another cried.

”Get down! Get away from the tower!”

”Now it will come for us!” The final shout carried above all the others.

The bridge continued assembling without rushing. The cubes moved with perfect patience, one after another, forming a smooth road toward the palace on the opposite side.

Kaiser stepped to the open edge of the chamber and watched its progress. ”Or it expects us to come to it.”

The elder tribesman seized Ludwig’s arm. ”We cannot cross.”

Ludwig looked toward the changing road. ”The road behind us takes your minds.”

”Then we stay here,” the man insisted. He spoke as though remaining still could prevent the palace from reaching them.

”And wait for the bridge to finish?” Ludwig asked.

The man looked down. Already, the white cube road leading back toward the canyon had begun changing. The way behind them was rearranging itself.

Celine watched the movement. ”It is closing the retreat.”

”Not entirely,” Kaiser said. ”It is simply making retreat more inconvenient.”

Celine gave him a flat look. ”That is the same thing when Sloth is involved.”

The last section of bridge reached the far side of the chasm. A continuous white road now connected the Watch Hollow to the forest beneath the palace, yet nothing crossed toward them. No soldiers marched from the citadel and no monsters charged. The invitation simply waited.

Ludwig descended the tower. The staircase formed beneath his steps as before, carrying the others back toward the platform. By the time they emerged, Tull and Redd had their weapons ready, while Thomas hovered above them with small flames flickering nervously from his body.

”What did you see?” Tull asked as Ludwig stepped out.

”A paradise,” Ludwig replied. The answer made Tull’s grip tighten upon his weapon.

Redd looked across the bridge. ”That doesn’t sound like a problem.”

”It is.” Ludwig’s expression left no room for argument.

The tribesmen clustered near the rearranging path into the canyon. Several tried to retreat again, but the moment they stepped from the platform, their expressions emptied and their bodies turned back. They were trapped between the palace and the road that refused to let them leave.

”We can wait here,” Celine said, though she kept watching the bridge. Even she did not sound convinced that waiting would improve their position.

Cain looked toward the distant palace. ”For what?”

”The bridge may disappear,” she replied. Her attention followed the cubes all the way to the far shore.

”Or something may cross it,” Cain warned. His gaze remained fixed upon the palace gates.

Redd looked at Ludwig. ”And your plan?”

Ludwig studied the white path. They could remain on the platform and surrender initiative completely. They could attempt to break through the cube field behind them, though doing so would leave half the group unconscious and directionless. Or they could accept the invitation and enter while they still understood what was happening.