Episode 4 Beyond the River of Darkness - Part 4

 Beyond the stone walls, there was only a seemingly endless darkness.

 The leopard-headed Guin, the prince Remus of Paro, his sister Linda the Seer, and Suni, the daughter of Shem, should have avoided the onslaught of the barbarians and gradually been driven back to the wall of the room at the top of the White Tower.

 At the bottom of the tower, the bodies of the sieves and the soldiers of the fortress are piled up, and there is no longer a moving figure, it is the day of destiny.

 The stone wall which had suddenly engulfed them was completely shut up in front of the groaning Semites, and showed no sign of being opened at all, even though the savages, who resembled monkeys very much, had beaten and kicked it and shouted at it. And the four who disappeared as if they were sucked into the wall, screaming and shouting in anger at the unexpected event, fell helplessly into the deep darkness.

 It did not seem to be a very deep hole, but it was very strange. When the initial speed of their seemingly endless fall suddenly slowed down, something akin to a soft sense of buoyancy enveloped them, and they fell onto the stone floor in a heap.

 It was fortunate for them that Guin, the heaviest of them all, was at the bottom as they fell. If it had been Suni or Linda who had fallen, it would have been impossible for all four of them to survive. But Guin's well-developed muscles instinctively took the impact of the stone floor, and the boys and girls fell on top of him one after another.

 The shock of the crash gripped them, and they lay unconscious for some time, crumpled at the bottom of a dark pit.

 But it was not for long. Eventually, at the bottom, Guin began to shuffle about, whooshing and gasping for air, and then pushed away the girl's head, which seemed to belong to her, and everyone managed to regain consciousness.

"Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?"

 That was the first thing Guin said. The muffled, slightly inaudible voice peculiar to this leopard man reverberated in the darkness, calling out a strange echo.

"It's--it's okay. Linda..."

"I'm okay, too."

 Remus and Linda answered and hugged each other tentatively.

"It's like we've gone blind. It's so dark. What happened to us? I think we were in that tower room ..."

"Be quiet."

 That was Guin's answer. He looked straight into the eyes of the Leopard, which seemed to burn green even in the darkness, and said in a deep voice, searching for the enemy who could not be known where he lurked.

"We fell through the wall of that tower room. There must have been a secret door in that wall and a secret hole behind it. Well, that's common in old castles, but does that mean we're safe for the moment at least, or not?"

"I can't see anything. Something's really wrong. Hey, Guin, this is a bad place. There's something in the darkness that's supposed to be unbearable. I can't help but feel that we're getting dangerously close to the body of something very nasty."

 Linda said in a shaky voice, shaking herself in the dark.

"You're Linda the seer, Princess."

 was Guin's answer.

"You're right as always. But this time, even I can smell the fever without your foreknowledge. My nose has been filled with the sweet smell of decay for some time now. Isn't the smell of living, rotting flesh more disgusting than the smell of death?"

"Vernon, the Black Count."

 Linda whispered. And suddenly she was frightened,

"Yes! That's what it was."

 We clapped hands.

"The disgusting ghost that Suni and I saw in the tower room, that was the figure of the Black Count who came through this passage to sacrifice the imprisoned sacrifice. That's why he suddenly disappeared."

 Linda spoke quickly, explaining how a monster with blackened flesh had appeared and disappeared from underneath the bandages. Then, suddenly, she was horrified,

"But then this passage would have been taken by that monster. If the Black Death is still here..."

"Hm."

 Guin snorted. His nose itched and his strong body cried out in instinctive disgust, wanting to jump out of here right now. But he held back.

"But there's still something you don't understand. How in the world did the Count get to and from the small room in the tower using this shaft? Is there a rope ladder in the wall? Or a protrusion carved into the stone wall? But I don't see how a sick man with a broken hand could climb up a high wall with it.

"Yeah--"

 Linda thought.

"And there's something I still don't understand... Suni and I were almost touching that monster when it disappeared. And yet, after the monster was gone, we were safe. Our skin didn't sore-- Linda shook violently-- and we didn't fall victim to the Black Death that rots people while they live.

 But Count Vernon did say that his disease is a chronic disease of the unbridled horse nature that spreads quickly when it comes in contact with the air and scares those nearby. --"

"I see."

"There's something about Castle Staphorus."

 Linda whispered. In a low voice, as if she were afraid something in the darkness would hear,

"There are mysteries about this castle. Even if the Semites had not attacked, I think Staphorus would have been doomed to fall in the near future."

"Linda, the seer. The prisoner who broke into the next cell and escaped early, the mercenary Istvan, who called himself the Demon Warrior because he sensed danger, said the same thing-- what's the matter, girl?"

 Guin laughed, but as soon as he mentioned the name of Istvan of Valachia, he was startled to feel an electric shock run through Linda's body, which he had been rubbing together.

"Istvan of Valachia, did you have any idea who the Red Mercenary was?"

"Yes--no! Not at all . But ..."

 Linda stretched out her hand and gently twisted it around Guin's firm arm. She remembered that the first time she had called out the name of the leopard-headed warrior, she had felt a shiver run through her as if she had heard the sound of a yarn spinning.

 But there was something different about the name of the mercenary that made her shudder when she heard it. The name of the Valakian Istvan, a name she had never even heard before, stirred up strange anxieties and agitation in this girl who had been born with a strange sense of being loved by the gods. Linda clung to Guin all the more tightly. When she touched his warm, bare, strong body, something powerful flowed from it, encouraging her and reassuring her.

"Hey--Linda, what's wrong? What do you see?"

 Remus, who had been listening intently in the darkness, joined the conversation, somewhat dissatisfied. Remus had always been proud of his sister, and had even loved her, but when she had immersed herself in the feeling of being not only Paro's holy twin, but also Linda, the Seer, he had always felt left out, abandoned, frustrated and lonely.

"I don't know. It's probably just my imagination. But--"

 Linda leaned even closer to both Guin and her brother,

"Hey, how long are we going to sit here like this?"

"If I could get out--but I can't."

 Guin replied bitterly, and raised himself to explore the ink-black darkness, where even his outstretched hand was invisible to him.

 Suni of the Shemites, who had been silent until then, began to speak in a high-pitched voice. When Guin spoke back in their language, Linda and Remus were terrified.

"Guin! You not only understand the Semitic language, you can speak it!"

"Hey Guin--who the hell is Guin!"

"Be quiet. I'm trying to tell you something important."

 Guin scolded him and then explained.

"She says that the Semites can see in the dark, and that I am on their side, and that you are dear to them, and that she will go scouting to save us. Suni says the darkness isn't very wide, and the walls are chiseled like they used to have some kind of lift, and you can't go any further than fifty paces. Suni says. There must be another hidden door in this wall."

"But I don't know what's out there. Don't go, Suni."

"But we can't just sit here like this and sit around forever. Besides, Suni's already gone to check the wall."

 Guin said.

"Don't worry. No matter what's beyond the Wall, I didn't lose the long sword in my hand while falling down the hole. With it, I have nothing to fear from whatever comes."

"All I'm thinking about is that moving carcass."

 Linda said, annoyed. At that moment, however, the piercing cry of a Semitic girl from a short distance away caught her attention.

"Suni! What's wrong with you!"

 Linda screams and tries to run away. Remus stopped her in a panic.

"He says there's a hidden door."

 Guin translated and grabbed them both by the shoulders.

"Let's go."

"But the Black Count--"

 Remus was about to say something,

"Heee!"

 I heard Suni scream.

 Suddenly, a thin beam of light cut through the darkness, and immediately the original darkness--Guin--charged toward it, dragging them with him.

"The hidden door has been turned. Suni went out the other side."

"Suni! Suni!"

 Linda forgot about her concern that it might have been the Black Count's passage and pounded on the stone wall that had engulfed Suni with her small fist.

 It seems that it just happened to hit the same button that Suni had touched. Immediately, the stone wall spun around as before and spat them out over the wall and closed it.

 The three of them slumped down on the stone floor, a little stunned. From the darkness that had made them think they were blind, they had suddenly stepped out into the light, and for a while they were so blinded that they could see nothing.

 This does not mean that the place was exceptionally bright. Rather, it was only dimly lit, and when my eyes adjusted a little, I realized that it was a low-ceilinged basement made of stone, and that it was still the same castle of Staphorus.

 The damp basement seemed to be a room in the cloister. There was no one around - not even Suni, who was supposed to have been thrown out the door earlier, let alone the Semites. There was only a trickle of water dripping from the stone wall.

"This is--"

 Guin said, looking around.

"Looks like we're in the basement of the Black Tower, where they brought me first."

 With a long sword in his hand, he crept out one step at a time, surveyed the scene outside, and beckoned the twins to him.

"It's true. I was taken through this corridor to the Count's torture chamber."

"So the Black Tower and the White Tower are connected by a secret underground passage."

 Linda said.

"And I'm sure the Black Count, or one of his men, will secretly visit the sacrifice I've locked away in the White Tower."

"That's what I thought."

 Guin, while answering, was constantly scouting left and right, but when he saw that there was no other sign of lurking behind the pillars that lined the corridor, he stepped forward, pulling the twins to his sides.

"I wonder what's wrong with Suni."

"I don't know. Maybe he ran away."

"I'm not--I'm not that kind of girl."

 Linda looked around on both sides. The stone pillars lined up in a regular pattern, the worn stone walls, the dark lighting, the lack of people everywhere, and of course the invasion of the Semites that had covered the rest of the castle, did not seem very real as long as she was here.

 Only a grim silence and loneliness dominate the underground corridor, and if you stay there, you will be lured into thinking that all the disturbances on the ground were not a dream. Only a faint, unpleasant odor that you have already smelled comes to your nose out of nowhere, stirring up some anxiety.

"Suni--Suni!"

 Linda called out and her voice echoed off the stone building.

"Don't. You don't know what's nesting in there."

 When Guin stopped her, Linda pursed her lips.

"I'm sure I walked here - to the right, up this uphill path, and it was the castle owner's torture chamber, where a lot of slaves were kept."

 Guin said.

"If it please you, let us free the slaves, and let us cut through the Shemites with them, and let us escape."

"But,suni..."

"Suni is Shem's daughter. We don't need to figure out how to get past the Semites."

 Guin sheltered the children behind him and stuck to the side of the entrance of the familiar hall that the Black Knights had pushed him through when he had been forced to fight the Grey Monkeys.

"Stay here."

 He said in a low voice, and stepped noiselessly into the room lined with torture devices with his long sword in his hand.

 is--

"This again."

 Hearing Guin's suddenly loud voice, Linda and Remus followed him into the room.

"There's no one here. Not the slaves, not the Count of Vernon."

"Shem and the others didn't get you, did they?"

"No--"

 Guin said, looking around.

"No bodies, no blood. Just the chains those slaves were chained in."

 It was a depressing sight that strangely chilled my heart.

 In the large, but dimly lit chamber, all the instruments of torture formed a gloomy procession, like the mad and twisted mind of the master who had collected them. They seem much more horrible now that all the mechanisms have ceased and only empty rings of iron chains have fallen beside the stone tables and iron contraptions than when the torture machines were operated by sluggish, hopeless, dead-eyed slaves chained to them.

"--what happened."

 Guin said in a somber voice.

"I don't understand any of this. What happened to the slaves, and what made the Black Tower so clean and void of human life. ..."

"Guin--you're scaring me."

 Remus clutched at Guin's chest .

"Wow--me too ..."

 Linda agreed. Even against the attacks of the Shemites, even against the terrifying threat of the Black Count himself, as long as he was a tangible enemy, she could manage to stand her ground. But to fight with such complete impersonality and silence, with no movement, not even of air, with such a stagnant, heavy, gloomy fear...

"Guin, I don't want to be here!"

 It was no wonder Linda's voice was shaking so hard.

"It's not good here . The darkness and the death brought by the Semites is better. Guin, let's go back."

"No."

 Guin shook his head. The Leopard's eyes flashed.

"If we are to turn back and face death, it would be better for us to continue on and face the unknown and haunting threat. Don't worry, if you've been possessed by the Black Death that rots you alive for the Black Count, I'll stab you to death on the spot."

"Promise me. Promise me?"

"Over this leopard head of mine."

 Guin recovers his long sword.

"Beyond this hall, I saw the room where I was forced to fight the Grey Monkey, and behind it, I saw the dark entrance again. Maybe, if I'm not mistaken, beyond that entrance is a staircase that goes up into the Black Tower, or at least a passage that leads somewhere."

 There they huddled together, their nerves stirred by the gloomy sound of the drops of water falling on the walls, and they jumped up and down as they passed through the stone chamber, where there was no sign of anything living.

"Look."

 Guin said as they entered the next, empty room.

"On the low ground over there I slaughtered the Grey Ape of Gabul. You can see the barred cage in the back.

 But... there is no sign of the monkey's corpse, only the stench of the great ape that had been captured."

"I'm sure they cleaned up."

 Remus deduced.

"Or maybe there was a simpler way to take care of it."

 Guin gave a gloomy laugh. Linda and Remus rubbed themselves firmly against Guin from both sides, like two white rock daffodils entwined in a huge rock.

 Only the footsteps of the three reverberated in the room. They were unhindered by any enemy, living or dead, and they passed through the room to the doorway at the back.

"You've got a real test ahead of you."

 Guin said in a low voice and let the twins enter behind him.

 Beyond the arched entrance, as Guin had predicted, was a narrow staircase that seemed to wind its way around. So the white tower in which they were confined and this black tower were designed almost as a pair.

 But Guin hesitated only briefly before stepping through the door. Something strange and unworthy of a resolute Leopard knight held him back. Beyond the doorway, there was once again a sticky darkness, as if it were warning him of what it hid, of what lived there." Do you feel anything, Linda?"

 As if to say that he was hesitant to go on, Guin whispered, pointing to the darkness and the stone steps that were submerged in it, beyond the narrow walls on either side. Linda hugged Remus and whispered back, as if she did not want to be heard by the darkness.

"The worst thing is out there, Guin. And we can see our way to survival beyond it."

"Then we must face the monsters that lurk in this tower, no matter what."

 Guin said, and without any more fear, he took a step into the darkness of the stairs. His yellowish eyes were beginning to burn with a strange fire. It was a thought that flashed through Remus' mind, but it seemed as if Guin had put his inner man to sleep and given his soul to a Leopard instead.

"Follow me, and stay close to me, twins."

 Guin said, and began to climb the narrow stone steps carefully but without hesitation. Immediately a lukewarm, strangely life-like darkness enveloped him. The twins followed.

 They walked up the stairs, turned, and walked up again. Linda bit her lip and tried not to scream, and felt her twin brother's hand grasp her arm encouragingly. For Linda, who was gifted with psychic abilities, the soothing touch of the darkness, the musty smell that gradually penetrated her nose, and the unseen presence of the entire tower, as if it were watching over them, were all indications that this was the ward of the Demon Doll, It stirred up an anxiety that I could never get used to.

 They turned again and ascended the seemingly endless stairs.

 That's when I heard it.

 A faint, barely audible cry escapes from a mouth bound with cloth.

 It sounds like a young girl's voice, but it has a high-pitched tone that is strangely inhuman.

"It's Suni's voice!"

 Linda screamed.

 Guin started to run. His well-developed hearing could tell which way the voice was coming from without a second thought. One more floor up--and to the right.

 On the last few steps, I jumped up on my feet. There was a dark passage that seemed to lead to several rooms. A strange smell rose to an unbearable level.

 Guin ran with his sword in his hand and suddenly kicked down the first door. And he gasped for breath. Inside a stone-walled chamber of the same construction as the White Tower was a pile of human bones, white even in the dark!

"Caw!"

 The twins screamed.

"Not here!"

 As soon as he shouts, Guin runs to the next door, and then to the next door again--

 Then he flinched and backed away.

 I tried to kick down the next door, but my feet got lost in the air.

 The door opened of its own accord, revealing a void of darkness that was almost like outer space.

 In it, Suni, tied up and hung up, is crying. But more than that...

 The three of them stepped back unconsciously.

 From within the darkness of a square stone wall, filled with a strange odor...

 A single armored warrior loosely emerges.

 With his cheeks down, a black mask covering his nose and mouth, and old metal fittings clanking together, he looked like a ghost from ancient times, wandering out of a nightmare every night.

 There was something inexplicably unnatural about its jerky, slow movements. And the tremendous smell - a huge, ridiculous warrior doll filled with fear and curse.

 Linda screamed. The scream died in her throat.

"The Black Count!"

 Something in the figure of the armoured warrior, who stood shimmering against the eternal darkness, was a horrible horror that blasphemed all providence and smeared every spark of life with despair and filth. The warrior slowly turned his face away - he laughed.

 Then, just as slowly, General Vernon, Lord of Castle Staphorus, Black Earl of Mongol, opened his mouth.