The Paladin's Tale by Jonathan Moeller Read Free Book Online Page B

victorious.”
    The shadow filled everything, and Calliande sank into darkness.
     
    ###
     
    Her eyes shot open with a gasp, the cobwebs dancing around her lips, her heart hammering against her ribs. Again a violent spasm went through her limbs, her muscles trembling, her head pulsing with pain.
    Bit by bit Calliande realized that she was ravenous, that her throat was parched with thirst.
    And she was no longer in the darkness.
    A faint blue glow touched her eyes. She saw a vaulted stone ceiling overhead, pale and eerie in the blue light. The air smelled musty and stale, as if it had not been breathed in a very long time. 
    She pressed her hands flat at her sides, felt cold, smooth stone beneath them.
    On the third try she sat up, her head spinning, her hair falling against her shoulders. 
    She lay upon an altar of stone, or perhaps a sarcophagus. The altar stood in the center of a stone nave, thick pillars supporting the arched roof. The blue light came from the far end of the nave, near an archway containing a set of stairs. 
    Calliande sat motionless for a moment, listening to the silence.
    She had no idea how she had gotten here. Nor, for that matter, did she know where she was.
    And, with a growing sense of panic, she realized she could not remember who she was.
    Calliande, her name was Calliande. She knew that much. But the details of her past turned to mist even as she tried to recall them. Shattered, broken images danced through her mind. Men in white robes, warriors with eyes of blue flame, armies of blue-skinned orcs…but all of it slithered away from her grasp.
    Something, she realized, had gone terribly wrong.
    “They were supposed to be here,” she whispered, her voice cracked and rasping. “They were supposed to wait here.”
    But who?
    She didn’t know.
    Her panic grew, her hands scrabbling over the altar’s stone surface. After a moment she realized that she was looking for something. A…staff? Yes, that was it. A staff.
    Why?
    Calliande looked around in desperation, her panic growing. 
    “They were supposed to be here,” she said again.
    But through her fear, her mind noted some practical problems. She was alone in a strange place, her stomach was clenching with hunger, and she was so thirsty her head was spinning. Despite whatever had happened to her, she could not remain here and wait for someone to find her. 
    Calliande took a deep breath, braced herself on the edge of the altar, and stood. Her boots clicked against the stone floor, and her legs felt as if they had been made of wet string. Yet she did not fall, and after a moment she took a step forward.
    Something brushed her left arm and fell to the floor.
    She looked down at herself and saw that she wore a robe of green trimmed with gold upon the sleeves and hems, and the left sleeve had fallen off, exposing the pale skin of her arm. Once it must have been a magnificent garment, but now it was worn and brittle, the seams disintegrating. The leather of her belt and boots was dry and crumbling, and the few steps she had taken had already split her right boot open.
    The clothes looked centuries old.
    Her fear redoubled. Was she dead? Had she been buried alive?
    Another part of her mind, the cold part that had urged her to find food and water, pointed out that a dead woman would not feel nearly as hungry as she did. Had not the Dominus Christus eaten food in front of his disciples to prove that he was not a spirit? 
    Whatever had happened to Calliande, she was still alive.
    But she needed to take action to stay that way. 
    She crossed the nave, her boots crumbling further with every step. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, and she glimpsed more cobwebs stretched between the heavy pillars supporting the ceiling. No other footprints marked the dust. It was clear that no one had entered this chamber in a long time. Soot stained the pillars, and here and there Calliande saw piles of burned wood that had once been furniture.
    Had this place