text: The words echoed through Bav’s memory as he descended the rough-hewn steps, deeper and deeper into the earth. The woman at the gate had spoken them to him, a last warning as he crossed the threshold, two days prior. Maybe three days; the only light he had was what he brought with him, and that was now much reduced. He spent more time without a candle or torch than with one, now. Without knowing how much further he would have to go, he wanted to make sure he had some light when he reached the bottom. That he never considered what he would need for the climb back up was not something he wanted to dwell on. Bav’s journey to this place had started three years earlier, on a farm near the coast. He had been travelling long before that, making his way by the strength of his arm and the steel of his sword. Mostly caravan work, some mercenary fighting. Occasionally some less reputable tasks. Bav cared little for the morals - a fight was a fight, and he won far more of them than he lost. He had stopped at the farm to rest, trading manual labour for a berth in the hayloft and a meal or two before moving on. The work was hard, and boring, but nobody was trying to drive a foot of steel into his belly, so he managed to enjoy himself for two days. Hot food, a daughter that was pleasant to the eye, and a warm spot to sleep was enough for the moment. On the third day, things soured slightly, and Bav made up his mind to move on in the morning. The farmer, an old man named Sil with eight fingers, advised bav that it was a Festday, and that he would be required to make his way with the family to the temple or be turned out as a heretic. Not one for religion of any sort, but also wary of the ferocity of a town full of zealots - it would not have been his first, and he would be more than happy to scrape and bow before a beshitted altar for a day than have to deal with one again - Bav agreed. It was an hour walk into the nearest town, and Bav spent most of it trying - and failing - to make the farmer’s daughter laugh. The girl’s mother noticed, and gave Bav her evilest look whenever the opportunity arose. Bav would grace her with his most charming smile in return, and moved the time of his departure in the morning up a few minutes when she looked away. At this rate, he’d be leaving before nightfall. The temple was what he expected, little more than a mud shack at the end of a rutted and narrow track in the town. Small fires burned on each side of the door, piling oily black smoke into the air and forcing Bav to cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve. He glanced in the pyres as he passed, and quickly looked away. It looked like they were burning cats in the fires, and he shook his head. Inside was little better. There were no pews, just a mud floor with a clear circle in the middle of some three dozen farmers and peasants. Sil moved forward, leaving his wife and daughter with Bav, though they quickly moved away from him as well. The three family members sat at opposite sides, Sil to the left and the women to the right side of the circle. Nobody looked at Bav, nor advised him what to do, so he simply moved to one side of the entrance and folded his arms to wait. After a few minutes, Bav stifled a yawn and tried to shift his weight to get more comfortable, and when he looked back at the circle he was surprised to see an old woman in the middle of it. He glanced around to see if he could see where she came from, but there were no gaps in the circle, and no entrance that he could see aside from the one he was standing next to. Suddenly aware that his weapons were back at the farm, Bav adjusted his stance. It was something every fighter learned to do instinctively, to shift their weight to the front of their feet to be ready to leap, to lower their posture to make themselves harder to move against their will. Bav felt his instincts reaching out, mentally assessing the threats in the room. Despite her size and apparent fragility, the old woman dominated his mind. She was short, not quite five feet tall, though Bav suspected if her back was straight she might be a little over that five feet. She was draped in some sort of skin, poorly tanned and with a hole for her head. Rough stitching along the edges gave it a hem of sorts, and it dragged in the dirt around her feet. Her hair was filthy, shaggy, and wild, obscuring her face. Woven into it were the bones and fetishes typical of every country shaman Bav had ever encountered. As he watched, she raised her arms, lifting the skin up over her head, and Bav was shocked to see that she was naked underneath. He was equally shocked that as she lifted the skin from her shoulders he could see that she wasn’t old at all. Like lifting a veil, as her body was revealed Bav was pleased to see a healthy, attractive young woman before him, barely in her thirtieth year. As he watched, her face came free of her garb, and he was shocked to see that her hair, filthy and bedraggled only a moment before, was blond and held back from her face in a thick braid. Bav was barely aware of the chanting when it started, fascinated as he was by the young shaman in front of him. He was mesmerised by her eyes, and found himself relaxing his stance as he leaned toward her. It was as she began to dance that he noticed the people in the circle around her, swaying in time to their own chanting, in a language he didn’t recognise. Despite her obvious beauty, Bav was instantly afraid, and wanted out of that room. Village fanatics be damned, he determined to leave, and turned to the door. It was gone, and he patted the wall with his hands, confused, looking for it. When he had come in, it was just a deerskin draped across the hole cut in the wall. Now, as he ran his hands along the wood and glanced around the room, he could find no break anywhere. Panic seized him, then, and he spun to face the woman in the circle. She was staring at him, her face tilted down so she was looking at him through the hair that fell in front of her face. Smoke filled the room, making her look more and more like a predator. As he watched, the air in the room darkened, and he found himself locked in place by her eyes. They glowed in the shadows, and soon his vision was filled with nothing but her eyes. The chanting reached a crescendo pitch, and stopped suddenly. The immediacy of the silence struck Bav like a hammer blow, and he felt himself falling unconscious, the woman’s eyes following him into the abyss. When he awoke, he had found himself back at the farm, with no memory of how he had gotten there. Sil’s daughter was sitting in the hay next to his bedroll, and he started up when he saw her. “By the Moons!” he cried, scrabbling back from her. She tilted her head, seemingly puzzled. “The Moons?” she asked. “You’re one of those, then?” “What in the pit happened back there? Who was that woman?” The girl leaned forward, looking around as if to make sure nobody else was there. “You mustn’t ask that,” she whispered. “It’s dangerous. Nobody speaks of her.” Bav, confused, looked for a weapon. His knife was closest, and he reached for it. “What?” “You have to help us,” she said, without a hint of concern over the blade in his hand. “I have to what?” “Help us. She’s taking us, one by one. She’ll take you, if you stay. She’ll take me soon, if you don’t help.” She said this so calmly, with no sign of fear in her face, that Bav wasn’t sure how to react. “Taking you?” he asked, finally. She nodded, still expressionless. “She takes people into her. To her world. They don’t come back,” she said. “Into her? To her world?” Bav asked. He still held the knife, but his resolve was weakening, and he found himself lowering it. “What do you mean?” “She’s not from here. She’s something else. She looks human, but she’s not,” the girl said. “Not human? She didn’t look like a Treechild,” Bav said. The girl shook her head. “Not a Treechild, either. Not from here at all. From somewhere else.” As she said this, she looked up, and waved her hand above her. Bav knew she was indicating the sky overhead, but didn’t understand what that meant. “She came two years ago, and she’s been taking us ever since.” “I don’t understand,” Bav said. “Where does she take you? Why don’t you just leave?” She shook her head, looking down at her hands in her lap. “We can’t leave. She doesn’t let us,” she said. She looked up, and Bav fell back at her eyes, now as black as pitch. “You must go to the Bann Faew, and descend into the blackness you find there. At the bottom, you will see the Heart of Ogel. Consume the Heart, and set us free.” As she finished speaking, her head dropped again, and Bav was certain that whoever had spoken the words was not this young girl he had spent three days trying to flirt with. She looked up at him again, and her eyes were normal again. “My name is Abra,” she said. “Please remember me.” Before he could say anything in response, she was gone. Bav didn’t bother saying anything to the farmer or his wife, he simply gathered his things and left. He had tried to forget the farm, and the shaman in the temple, but for the next year his dreams were haunted by nightmares of her eyes as she danced in the smoke. Eventually, he started asking people he met about what the girl had said to him. About the Bann Faew and the Heart of Ogel. Most didn’t know what he was talking about, but were more than willing to listen as long as he bought the ale. It was three months later before he found somebody who knew something. At a campsite on the edge of the Scouring Sands, he met a trio of monks who were making pilgrimage to some holy relic or another, and when he was sufficiently deep in his cups Bav asked them if they knew of the Bann Faew. The three monks all snapped their eyes to him at once as he uttered the words, and Bav froze in place. “I take that as a ‘yes’,” he said. The eldest of the three monks ushered the other two away, and sat cross-legged in front of Bav. “Where did you hear of the Bann Faew?” the man asked. Despite his drunkenness, Bav could hear the threat in the man’s voice. And despite his advantage in size and weaponry, Bav knew the threat was real. He set his cup down and leaned forward. In a hushed voice, he related the tale of the farmer’s Festday, and of the shaman in the temple. When he came to the part of the girl’s words, and how he was convinced that it had not been the girl at all, the monk made him slow down and repeat the tale again. He dug for details, pulling more and more out of Bav’s memory. After he had gone over it half a dozen times, the monk seemed satisfied, and relaxed. Bav was certain that his life had just been spared. When the monk spoke, it was with a voice of authority. “Why you have been chosen for this task, I do not know, but I am not one to question these things. You must travel to the east, deep into the lands beyond the great Hareun River. There you will encounter the homelands of the Berren Toch, the race of giants of legend. Seek out their city, a city without a name, and find Yorok, the sage. Tell him this tale just as you have told it to me, and he will guide you to the Bann Faew. May the heavens guide your path, my friend. And may the gods protect you.” The monk stood at that, and walked away. Bav tried to follow, but the three of them melted into the shadows beyond the firelight, and Bav never saw them again. The next morning, he started east, as he had been directed, and walked for months. When he reached the Hareun River, he hired a fisherman to ferry him across. The fisherman would not come close to the far shore, so Bav had to swim about half a mile to reach the rocky riverside. He walked again, always east, and eventually came to the lands of the Berren Toch. A pair of the giants set upon him as he camped one night, and he begged directions to their unnamed city. They seemed reluctant, but when he described the monk that had sent him here they acquiesced, and accompanied him to his destination. They explained that these lands were dangerous when travelled alone, and they would see him safely to Yorok to repay a debt to the monk. Yorok was ancient, older than anything Bav had ever seen. Bav felt the weight of ages in the giant’s presence, and was convinced that this being had seen the foundation stones of the world laid in the Beginning, and that he would see them pulled at the End. Yorok guided him to a great stone well in the forest, where a woman stood guard. Yorok and the woman didn’t speak to each other - indeed, they didn’t even acknowledge each other’s presence - and Bav was left with her as Yorok simply turned and left without speaking. “Why have you come here, Man?” a voice asked. Bav looked around to see who had spoken, for the woman’s lips had not moved. Finally, he decided she must have been the one to ask, and addressed her. “I was sent by a girl on a farm, who’s family and neighbours were being taken by a being not of this world.” There was silence in the cool air for some time, and Bav was about to say something else when the voice rang in his ears again. “What was her name?” Bav hesitated. He had never spoken the girl’s name aloud, though he remembered it as she had asked. He was afraid that speaking it would set it free, and he would forget her when that happened. He drew breath, and answered, “Abra. Her name is Abra.” “Was. She is gone, though you have remembered her and that is enough.” Bav was shaken by the revelation. He had known, of course, that she would be. It had been three years, after all. But hearing it confirmed filled his chest with stones. “You must descend. Are you prepared?” He checked his belongings, and felt that he had enough supplies. He nodded, and stepped forward. “I am ready, yes,” he said. “Mind the stairs. Take only one at a time, no matter your stride. To stray from this is to beg devastation. If you pray, do so now. There are no gods, here.” She stepped aside, and he peered into the well. Stairs spiralled down into the dark, and he lit a torch before climbing in. Mindful of the woman’s warning, and made sure to take each step in turn, even though they were close enough to make it awkward to do so. Soon enough they evened out and became more comfortable for him. Now, two (three?) days later, Bav was still careful to take them one at a time. When his light was out, he would slide his foot forward to the edge of the step before moving down to the next one, making sure he didn’t skip any in the dark. When he slept, he tucked himself in his bedroll against the riser behind him, and made a barricade between him and the next stair down so he wouldn’t fall. He ate sparingly, drank even less. He tried not to think of how far below the earth he was. When his mind turned to it, he was overcome with dread. Surely he was somewhere else, now. Surely he had passed through some barrier, and was no longer descending into the soil of his own world. When he awoke, he continued moving down, down, always down. The stairs no longer spiralled, and he cared not to remember how long ago they had stopped. Now it was a straight descent into the blackness. His food ran out after three more rest breaks, and his water ran out two rests after that. When he emptied his waterskin, he tossed it into the dark beside the stairs, listening for when it hit the bottom. He felt nothing when no sound came. It was three rests later, his lips parched and his tongue raw against them, when his foot, sliding forward to find the next stair, found nothing. He paused, unsure, and shuffled forward, seeking for the next stair. His toe bumped against something solid, and he held his breath. He reached his fingers ahead of him, gently, carefully, until they met a hard wooden surface. He slung his pack off his shoulder, and felt inside for his last candle. He lit it with a strike of his flint, and blinked against the brightness of light he hadn’t seen in days. As his eyes cleared, he looked up at a wooden door before him. He looked behind to see the stairs he had descended, climbing back up into the abyss above him, seemingly into forever. “By the Moons,” he muttered, and the woman’s voice echoed in his memory again. “There are no gods, here.” The door had a handle, and he reached for it with a trembling hand. It opened easily, and the door swung away from him on silent hinges. The room beyond was brightly lit, and he squinted against the glare. It was a many-sided room, and he quickly scanned it for dangers. Fourteen walls, and a small pedestal in middle were the only things he saw. The light came from everywhere and nowhere at once, and he dropped his candle to the floor as he stepped inside. Fourteen walls, and no doors in any of them. As he circled the room, he saw that the door he had entered through was gone, as well. Before, that would have worried him, but he was beyond such cares, now. The pedestal in the center of the room was waist-high, and had - he counted - seventeen sides. The juxtaposition of the pedestal versus the walls was jarring, somehow, and he felt his eyes grow itchy as he looked from one to the other. On the pedestal sat a small leather sac with no opening. Bav looked at it, and took another look around the room. Still nothing. Just fourteen walls, and a seventeen-sided pedestal, and the headache that came from looking at the two. And the bag. This must be the Heart of Ogel, there was no other explanation. He reached his hand for it, slowly, and froze when it shifted away from him. Like a small shapeless animal, it . . . *flexed*, somehow, and Bav was reminded of nothing so much as a baby pressing against a pregnant woman’s belly. He reached for it again, and it pulled away from his hand slightly before he grasped it. It was warm in his palm, and he felt it stretching and pushing against his fingers. He found he had to grip it tightly for fear of dropping it. He wasn’t sure why, but he had the feeling that if he let it go now, it would not go well for him. Keeping the bag firmly gripped in his left hand, he pulled his knife with his right. Guided more by instinct than anything else, he pressed the tip of the knife against the skin of the bag, pressing slightly. He felt the tip enter the skin, and it felt exactly like slowly stabbing a man in the belly. Blood welled up from the entry wound, and Bav pressed the knife in further. Blood came faster now, spilling out over his palm and falling to the floor. It was dark and thick, heart blood, and Bav twisted the knife slightly to open the wound. The bag in his hand was writhing now, and he gripped it tightly in his left hand as he pulled the knife free. He dropped the knife, and pushed his finger into the wound, hooking it under the skin to tear it open. As it ripped, he felt more than heard the screams of agony that arose from the wound. Agony and fury, bellowing out from the void that was the other side of the wound he had made. The blood that poured forth was warm, but the finger he had placed inside was cold beyond imagining. He pulled, tearing the bag open and spraying his face with the blood from inside, and there, in front of him, was a gaping void where the fourteen-walled room had been. Cold blasted him, and he heard screams beyond anything he had ever imagined. The screams of the mountains, of the stars, of the very world, filled his ears and his mind. And there, hanging before him in the void, was a stone. Black and ragged, it pulsed in the void - in-out, in-out - like a heartbeat. Bav reached a hand out to it, into the cold - so *cold!* \- and wrapped his frost-rimed fingers around it. The beating of the stone heart grew faster in his hand, and he pulled it toward him. It resisted - or something in the void resisted - and Bav had to brace his feet to get leverage. He pulled with all of his might, yelling with the effort, and fell backward when he felt the stone heart tear loose of the endless void and into his hand. The screaming grew louder, more furious, and the weight of the stone in his hand was immense. His arms screamed with the effort of holding it, and even more so for the effort of lifting it to his mouth. As he opened his jaws as wide as they would go to fit the stone heart between his teeth, the shaman’s eyes flashed in the void, staring at him with a fury unmatched. Beside her and behind her and all around her was the girl from the farm, staring at him through and around the shaman woman, pleading with him and pitying him all at once. He laughed into the void, then. “Abra!” he yelled, the howling of the void snatching the sound from him as soon as he made it. “I remember you!” Bav thought he saw her smile, then, but the shaman’s eyes grew wild as he said it, and he pushed the stone heart into his mouth, using his fingers to push it into his throat, and he swallowed reflexively, gagging the monstrous thing down. He heard the shaman’s shriek as he did so, and he fell to the floor as the tear he had opened seemed to reverse itself, sealing her fury and rage on the other side. As it did, the light in the room faded, and Bav fell to the floor, desiccated and cold.