Obloe's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

The theatre rose from the poisoned ground, dark red and black, nymph statues twisting up its face. Obloe stopped at the doorway and breathed the rot deep. Woga hopped beside him, suit still buttoned, antlers high. "You brought me here," Obloe rumbled. "Now take me to the seed." Woga's ears flattened. "I watched the hopper carry it inside. I did not follow. My records end at the doors." He tapped one gloved paw on the threshold. "The outside I know. The inside I do not." Obloe's heavy head sank. The halls beyond were black and rotting. He could crawl through them for days while the decay ate his strength. He did not have days. He barely had hours. A witness who knew only the outside was no witness at all. "You made a bargain," Obloe growled. "A record with no ending is worth nothing." "Then help me finish it," Woga said. He did not raise his voice. A cold voice answered from the dark doorway. "He cannot. He is a rabbit with antlers." A small shape stepped into the gray light. Black eyes, no white in them. Two black ram horns curled from its head. It wore torn dark cloth. It did not blink. Obloe had never seen this thing, but the rot leaned toward it and did not touch it. "Who are you," Obloe said. "Saturn. A god the others chose to forget." The dark entity looked up at the dragon without fear. "I live in the empty places now. This one is empty enough." Woga's paw crept toward Obloe's foreleg. Obloe felt the small creature shaking. "I know where your seed sits," Saturn said. "Below the stage. In the old prop room. The hopper left it and did not return." "Why tell me?" Obloe asked. "Because you will fail anyway." Saturn's flat voice did not change. "The decay takes everything. I only tell the truth. Truth is all I have left to give." He turned and pointed a thin arm down a black hall. "That way. There is a stone passage behind the curtains. Narrow. It runs under the stage. The rot is thin there." Obloe studied the horned thing. A liar would flatter. This one only promised ruin. That felt closer to true. "Show me the passage," Obloe said. Saturn walked into the dark. Obloe dragged his great body after, scraping the rotted walls. Behind a curtain waited a narrow stone arch, worn and old, words carved above it. The passage sank down toward the stage. Woga stopped at the arch. "Write this," he whispered. "Write that I brought you to the door." "You brought me to the door," Obloe said. "Saturn brings me to the seed." He pushed into the narrow passage. The rot was thin, just as the god had said. Ahead, past the crumbling stage, a heavy shape sat wrapped in cloth. His seed. And curled beside it, watching the passage with pale glowing eyes, waited a great spectral hound.