Bury the Light

The paladin’s body drops, and the market answers with a shriek of broken magic. V tears free of the wreckage as the floor seam widens into a black stairwell under his boots.

Rotten tide air rushes up from below, cold and briny. Above, the fish stalls crack apart, beams groaning as the warped catch thumps and skitters after the fleeing scent of power.

V lands on the first stone step, the landing half-buried in slick weeds and old shell. The passage curves down into a drowned undercroft, lit by a pale blue glow from water pooling far beneath.

Behind him, the market shakes itself loose in chunks. Dust rains down through the crack above as the starving fish batter the broken floor, unable to follow the ritual path any longer.

At the bottom of the first flight, V sees a flooded chamber ahead, its stone walls lined with hook marks and salt stains. Something pale moves in the water, then stills, waiting.

V stops short of the flooded chamber and lets the blade hover low, just above the stone. Blue light ripples over the water, and the surface holds still enough to read.

No current. The motion below is not current at all, but a shape, pale and long, circling under the glow with careful patience.

The shape turns once, and a line of pale rings flashes along its side, like old scars or scales. It keeps to the deeper blue, away from the stair.

Above him, the market crashes again. Dust and broken shell patter down the steps, but the water below stays open, clear, and deep.

The pale thing rises just enough to break the surface, showing a narrow snout and a glint of teeth before sinking back into the light.

Ahead, the flooded passage bends left into darkness, while behind him the broken stairs groan under the last frantic hammering from the market floor.

V lowers himself into the blue wash, water taking the steel’s reflection in a cold shimmer. He moves with measured care, blade forward, and the pale watcher does not strike.

The thing glides aside instead, yielding the narrow passage as if it has judged him and found him worth the trouble of ignoring.

V slips past the pale shape and into the flooded bend, the water pressing around his boots and the dark ahead swallowing the stair’s last light.

Behind him, the ruined market shudders again, but the way back is already choking with fallen timber and dust.

Ahead, the tunnel opens into a longer throat of black stone, and somewhere beyond it the road north waits like a promise made in moon-cold silence.

The pale shape lingers at his rear, just out of reach, still watchful, as if deciding whether to follow.

V gives the pale watcher a small, silent nod, neither challenging it nor offering his back. The creature answers only by drifting at the edge of the water, letting him claim the passage.

He turns deeper into the flooded throat, katana low now, his steps slow enough to hear each ripple. The dark ahead stays quiet, but his attention catches on every shift in the water and stone.

A slick current brushes past his boots, then slides away, as if something large has moved beyond sight. V does not flinch, but he marks the disturbance and keeps going.

Behind him, the pale shape begins to follow at a measured distance, neither close enough to threaten nor far enough to forget.

Ahead, the tunnel finally opens into a wider black channel, and a faint draft carries the scent of open night from somewhere beyond the stone.

Then the ceiling groans. A beam above the old marketway breaks with a wet crack, and muddy water surges across the passage, making the route to the road uncertain.

The pale figure drifts closer in the black water, not threatening, only attentive. The current curls around its limbs as if the undercroft itself is listening.

A louder rush rolls through the passage as the collapse settles behind him, and the muddy surge thins, leaving two dim openings ahead, one low and half-flooded, one rising into darkness.

The pale thing drifts to a stop beside the split in the passage, one hand skimming the surface as if reading it. The flooded route trembles with a slow inward pull. The rising route exhales dust from its throat.

Ahead, the stone arch on the upper path settles with a wet crack, but it holds. The water path stays open, black and patient, while the darkness above narrows into a climb.

V turns from the black water and takes the higher route, blade angled close as he starts up the stone climb. His boots find dry purchase where the steps jut from the wall, and the lower passage falls away beneath him.

The pale thing remains below, half-lost at the split, its stillness broken by a slight tilt of the head as it follows his ascent.

Halfway up, the arch gives another damp shiver, but the cracked stone holds. Dust sifts from above in a thin veil, and the upper way opens onto a narrow ledge leading north.

V clears the last step and reaches the northern road, where old stone runs straight into darkness beyond the undercroft.

Behind him, the flooded split settles into silence. Ahead, the road waits, and somewhere farther north, the tower that drinks moonlight still pulls his trail forward.