Chapter Four

The inside of the temple is as intricately carved as the outside, and unfortunately equally stained if not bearing an even heavier splatter. It is even apparent that patterns have been traced over and over in the blood, through each subsequent layer in a chilling effect. Jugong carefully lowers me to my feet before releasing me to take a protective stance, his wings braced wide with their sharp claws spread aggressively. He holds his arms away from his side, his fingers splayed and ready to attack. My hand drifts down to my blaster and I meet his eyes and nod firmly to him.

This is a place for us to both be on our guard.

With Jugong covering my rear, I take my first steps into the temple, the flickering candle light from numerous wooden stands arranged along the walls briefly dazzling my eyes before I take another step, and another as I make my way deeper in the temple's long gullet of a corridor.

It is as if I am walking into a massive sacrificial chamber where every inch has been baptized repeatedly in the blood of the dead. Among the morbid fingerpainting tall, skeletal carvings extend toward the roof, their hands open in supplication. At their lead are demons and infernal deities.

I pause in front of the image of a crowned, grim deity. His left hand is extended with a scroll clasped firmly in it. Jugong stops at my side and growls softly in his throat as his gaze skims over the figure.

A flicker of light shines on the carving and then grows brighter, bringing more details into sharper relief.

"That is unnamable, the high king." I jump at the sound of Nygohl's voice so unexpectedly near and glance over at him.

His black cloak and gear make him hard to see within the inner temple even with the rows of candles on long stands that line the walls. In the candlelight his form seems as shadowy as ever, all except his corpse-pale face and his large eyes staring back at me, lit with the same spirit light that glows brightly in the palm of his hand. He looks eerie, like a perfect porcelain doll of incredible perfection in form and beauty and yet equally as remote and cold… yet with his eyes burning that way as he looks at me—looks through me—I feel a deep response to it that sends warmth flooding into my cheeks.

My jaw clenches in protest. It is not like me to be drawn in by my prey. Then again, somehow the wraith managed to sneak up on us, and that was unprecedented since bonding with a Giwung. Even Jugong's large ears have snapped back in surprise at the sound of the wraith's voice, his head turning briefly toward him with a tight snarl. For a moment it appears that he is considering his attack, but his snarl ceases with a sound of disgust when he too notes that Nygohl is maintaining a safe distance that would allow him to disappear down the corridors with ease before we can fully launch an attack. Despite that, there is clarity in the wraith's presence. I can see him more clearly than anything else in the hall and can hear him easier than I even would be able to hear Jugong at my side.

Nygohl gives me a wry smile and nods to the wall, his gaze roving over the images. "I have spent weeks roaming along these halls—committing them to memory. His image appears repeatedly along with the words Haskan, the unnamable, the primordial dark king who rules all the kings of the underworld. There are other images further in, images of the Lamentari and the creatures of the gloom, and the monstrous nature of parts of the living forest that sheds and gathers the weeping essence of the dead to slake their own hunger."

I swallow nervously as I wrack my brain. There is a hint of something familiar about this but my education in the lore and history of the underworld was more of a crash course as part of my basic training.

"The high king," I whisper to myself and glance uncertainly toward Nygohl. "Is this… is this moment that the high king carved out the lands of the dead?"

The wraith tips his head in acknowledgement. "That is how they tell it—as if he is a great vanquisher who, by his power, created a place of peace and safety beneath his authority and the great kings and judges of the great court. But you will see—" his rasps, his voice growling hollower as he slowly fades behind the light of his spirit fire until his invisible hand closes, snuffing out his flame and helping him to vanish right before our eyes. "Come," he calls, his voice echoing in a long sigh. "There is more that you must see. Decisions to make if you truly wish to put your hands on me."

A wicked chuckle follows his words, the double entendre hitting deep as the heat rushes up into my cheeks once more and eliciting a sharp snarl of rebuke from the Giwung beside me.

"Shameless male. He wishes that I remove his head with one bite," Jugong growls, his teeth snapping together loudly for emphasis. He crowds closer to me, his wings practically trembling as they fan uneasily around us. It is as if they are straining against his desire to snap them closed around us once more but are restrained solely by his desire to protect us. "He thinks he is clever with his tricks, but he stinks of his interest. He will see. I will rip his cock from his body and see if his shadows can replace it with a new one if he gets too close to what's mine."

I pat Jugong's arm soothingly. His words don't surprise me. Giwung are often protective of those they bond with—it is one of their finer characteristics, especially among the large Gigungs. The vehemence in which he speaks them does catch me a little off guard but I decide after a moment of consideration that it is acceptable. It actually gives me a bit of the warm fuzzies because for a while there was a very real fear that at some point, he would break the bond to go hunt out a mate since I had lured in a male in his prime rather than a juvenile.

It has been pretty destressing actually in recent years and given me plenty of sleepless nights rather properly energy cycling and refreshing as all things in the underworld—even the dead—need to do. This level of possessiveness and protection could very well mean that he has bonded completely to me, to the point of negating his urge to mate hunt. I haven't heard it happening with Giwungs but a little flicker of hope ignites within my heart and it is all I can do to keep myself from grabbing onto him with excitement. Instead, I allow my eyes to drift back to the carving of the Haskan. I nod toward it, drawing Jugong's attention to the image.

"Do you know anything about this story?"

The male's wings flutter slightly but he grunts softly, his large body tucking closer to mine. For once I don't mind the fact that I'm getting jabbed yet again with the log between his legs. I know that Giwung are a very social species among their family groups, so he instinctively seeks out closeness. It is natural that he does so now. Hell, even I'm savoring the contact and the heat of his massive body against mine.

His wings stir in a tiny motion that he does when he wants me to keep moving. I get the feeling that it is making him uneasy to just stand there in the hall, and I can't say that I blame him. The walls devolve to more chaotic paintings for a time, interspersed with more processional scenes of skeletons in the flickering candlelight. The gods in the foreground change position, the things in their hands changing and their placement arranged differently among themselves except for the Haskan at the fore. Some of them appear to grasp various monsters in some scenes, mauling them or being brutally attacked by them. The skeletons suffer more. There are those that are broken and torn apart or carried off by monsters. It is one such scene that Jugong stops in front of, a frown pulling at the corner of his mouth as he stares at it for a time.

"The Giwung caverns saw light for the first time when the gods descended and joined the primordial dark mother. She walked among the great expanse of the blessed lands, giving succor and care for all of her children—until they came, and their ruler entered her bridal chamber. The blessed lands were often dangerous, but it was a balance that allowed all to thrive. When the gods came, they plunged their fire into the pits to illuminate them and the Giwung were blinded and in pain and surfaced from the pits for the first time. We adapted and saw that this was good to not always be constrained within the pit and darkness of the underworld nights, and many came into the service of the gods. Many nests relocated to pits within the domain established by the gods, and so you have seen it for yourself," he adds, his mouth quirking at the shared memory between us.

I smile in turn, but it fades quickly as my gaze catches once again on the violent scene. Clearly the relationship between the Giwung and the infernal gods was not quite so neatly established. Nor was the arrival of the gods a simple matter of romance. My gaze falls on a veiled queenly figure standing behind the Haskan, nearly lost among the images of the other familiar underworld gods crowded around her. He holds her by the wrist, leading her forward but her head almost seems to be bowed. She holds one hand upraised, clutching a single flower. There is something that strikes me as so sorrowful about her appearance but if I had to put it into words, I wouldn't know where to start to describe it.

"Come," Jugong rumbles, his wings fanning me lightly so that I look away from the wall and over to him instead. His ears are twitching which tells me that he released another sonic vocalization, but the tension eases a little in his face as his mouth curls with relief. "Come Marie, there is a safe place here we can rest."

That is good news if I ever heard it, and I give him a grateful smile as I allow him to herd me further down the hall and into a narrow entrance that opens into a room that is barely large enough for us to lay side by side. Jugong seems to get a sense of the situation quickly and solves the problem by dropping to the ground and opening his arms and wings for me. Although this isn't the first time that we have slept together in such a way, for some reason I feel oddly shy as I lower myself onto him. The awkwardness persists as his arms and wings fold around me but as I lay there, enjoying the rhythm of his breath and heartbeat, a deep calm rolls through me. I blink groggily and swear that I see the wraith's fiery eyes staring from outside the entrance, but I do not feel the least bit threatened—I feel lulled with a sense of peace and protection. Despite my surroundings I feel entirely safe, and I sleep with Jugong's purr rumbling in my ear.