9 Cul-de-sac

The crypt lay deep inside the many caverns beneath the rocky surface of the temple - a large hall with multiple smaller adjacent chambers that Tristan had only entered once long ago when things were 'normal'. Young and skittish as he was his sense of adventure was not enough to venture the deep darkness that filled those hallways. He avoided the place and anything near it after he had once fallen into one of the open sarcophagi.

He remembered the path well however, he memorized it so he could avoid it. Heading to the forbidding crypt straight was bringing out memories. But the fact that he was not alone helped his nerves.

Olean skidded behind, easily keeping pace, even when he was taking quick, unprecedented turns. She grabbed him when he stumbled and was about to meet the floor face first, again. He didn't thank her, after the third time, it had become pointless, and not as if it was of any matter for her, she lifted him like he weighed no more than a Korey pup.

Tristan stopped near a flight of broken stairs; a very dangerous part to be running on, and in his rush he had forgotten to bring illumination. He trod carefully, pillaging the empty spaces in the dark with his bare hands. The door to the crypt was visible below, a soft halo around it stranded in the darkness. With every step down he grew closer to it, afraid what he might find beyond.

For a few days until yesterday Nowsem had been insistent that Tristan focused more on his lessons. Hell bent on teaching his only tutee new spells and polishing the old ones he already knew. Tristan should have seen it coming by Nowsem's sudden rush that the old man had apprehended his demise and wanted to leave Tristan with as much as he could. He showed his interest to the old man's lessons, but truthfully he didn't see the point, he couldn't use the spells and even if he could there wasn't any way he would survive even the coming month.

Tristan tried to remember the previous morning. Like every other day he had gone to check up on Nowsem after his night-watch. The old man had then confided something in him, a task that had skipped his mind until recently. Tristan remembered waking up and being found in the woods near sundown by Olean; the entire day somehow skipped his memory. He was almost certain it had something to do with what Nowsem had revealed and asked from him but, the boy didn't remember what.

His gut told him that it was possibly something unimportant; but it was the only flashback he had from yesterday. A slick thought, slipping away from his minds hands whenever he got close to grabbing it. He clicked his tongue in frustration but kept his mind on it. He was certain that if he pursued it harder something was going to leak out of the blind spot in his overworked mind.

Tristan needed to see the old man soon. He rushed and missed a step and slipped as the light grew closer only to be held back again by Olean right before he was about to smack himself on the rocky paling.

They entered through the big, wooden doorway. Its saffron walls had rotted to the point of enervation. A wide stone altar sat empty at the center, with vines of white netted fabric making a web like pattern on its top. Tristan had expected Nowsem's fragile old body to be there covered in sheets. The old man didn't have any relative as far as they knew; in fact Tristan was the only one he ever talked to. And in the last few days, like with everyone else sick in his village, people had lost their aversion toward him; Tristan remained the sole caretaker of the old man. So naturally the last rites fell on his shoulders.

Nowsem's existence had been a mystery. Until Tristan found the man in the temple caves no one even knew about him, only a rumor that someone lurked the temple floors. It was a harmless rumor and since no one really went to the temple for any reason before the attack, people didn't care about it. Tristan hadn't told anyone he had found Nowsem or that he knew magic. He was fascinated, his curious youth getting better of him. He stalked the old man every day until Nowsem agreed to teach him some spells.

If not for the plague, the old man would be alive now. Tristan thought solemnly as his right hand absentmindedly scratched at his left. He was the first to catch the sickness. At that time no one knew about it. When Nowsem saw him scratching at his arm, he'd asked Tristan to show him the place where it itched. Tristan did and for the first time he saw fear in his master's eyes.

The next two weeks Nowsem didn't leave his chamber. Buried in the old scrolls and books thicker than his arm he'd brought out from somewhere, looking through each of them page by page. He was frantic, not even looking at his student as he mumbled madly to himself and went through the archaic writings. Tristan tried to read one, they were beyond him. On fifteenth day Nowsem summoned him, and when Tristan finally went inside the chamber, the already very old man looked like he'd aged ten more years in these days.

Tristan sat on the bed beside Nowsem at his orders. Most of the books and scrolls were back to their places, hastily stacked over one another, strangely different from Nowsem's usual meticulous behavior. Only few remained on his small desk at the corner, with one open near it with charcoal drawings of marks and symbols weighed down by a small rock. Tristan turned his head to look at it, like always they didn't make any sense to him but the power in them he felt very well. His core reverberated at its rhythmic vibration.

Nowsem held Tristan's arms by the elbows in his long and gangling hands and jerked him slightly forward in a harsh tug, but his grip went soft quickly and his hands now cradled with Tristan's. He chanted a slow mumble of strings of words and the hold that was soft was tightening at a slow pace. As the time passed the chanting turned rapid, fast but barely audible. The grip too tightened even more. Tristan pulled when it turned painful but he might as well have been pushing a mountain. He felt his bones crack, muscles crushed, skin melted but without any pain. The chanting too was just a high pitched shrieking noise in his ears now. He tried to pull from the discomfort but he felt like a statue, unmoved. His hands refused to shift, his mouth wouldn't open, even his head didn't turn, he could breathe and move his eyes but that too only felt like matter of time before they stopped working.

When the little procedure completed Tristan didn't know where his hands ended and the old man's began. He looked in shallow horror at the amalgamation of skin and muscles in front of them, his mind refusing to acknowledge its implication. He knew he should have been terrified or even shocked but all he could do was try to feel what he should and not really feel it at all. An irritation like an itch trailed down from his elbows to his forearms, then slowly it crawled to his hands, and before long he felt them entirely leaving his body.

His thumb moved, and then his other fingers, then the hands as he unstuck them from Nowsem's limbs. They felt like they'd been stuck together with thick and sticky slime. He freed his hands with a pull, a stronger jerk than he intended and rolled his shoulders, turned his head. The last few moments felt like they were nothing but a dream. He knew what had just happened, he had felt it. His master took his sickness. He looked at Nowsem, who was hunched over, head down, softly snoring in ragged breaths. He looked even sicker now, older, and thinner. He saw more wrinkles, even lighter and paler hair, the grey black flaking skin of the sickness visible in his outstretch trembling hands. Tristan waited, for him to stir to move, to ask what had happened and even though he knew what, he needed to know why.

Tristan never got his answers, Nowsem refused to even acknowledge what he had done. On top of that his falling health stopped Tristan from being too inquisitive. Times Nowsem could stay awake or standing visibly reduced each day. All because he took away what Tristan was destined too so that Tristan remained the only one alive. Sometimes he felt resentment, and then felt guilty for feeling so, even more so now now that they were saved from the plague and from the monster.