Things That Lurk

(Content warning for implications of violence, death, and mental health.)

When I was ordained as a priest of the Solar Order, I didn’t take my vows very seriously. But then again, that was back when the sun still exhibited its full strength. It was hard to know the dangers of the night when the members of my brotherhood had done so well to drive them back.

I, like any other in the city, thought the Order’s teachings a remnant of the past. The things they feared were consigned to the realm of metaphor and myth, teaching designed to frighten but never to exist in a physical way.

“It’s cold out here,” whispers the voice through the thick oaken doors I have my back pressing against. “Can you hear me, Brother Alom?”

I know I shouldn’t respond. To answer the demons of shadow is to allow them a passage unimpeded into your mind.

But through the stained-glass window above, I can see the light is waning. Our sun has become a meager, pale imitation of its once radiant self.

In its humble glow, the image of Saint Dellin has lost most of its majesty. His shoulders seem to slump before the alter, his hands stretching toward the last of our supply of sunstones. Their glow is similarly dim and not so different now from the stone they rest on. The sun will fade first, then it will be their turn.

Then it will be mine. So, what is the point of the teachings?

“When they said our job is to banish evil things like you, I assumed we would send you farther away,” I say, thumping my head against the boards.

“What do you mean, brother?” the beast asks with the innocence of Sister Poril. It sounds just like her.

They are very good at that. Imitation is perhaps the one thing they do best. It’s how they steal inside your mind, but the light can reveal them. It did reveal them, assembled around our temple’s feasting hall, pretending to be the men and women of my Order I had trained with. Grew up with.

Waiting for pilgrims like me to return home, so the last remnants of the sun could be snuffed out.

Soon, now. Soon.

“It’s cold,” she tries again, “and dark. You have to let me in before the demons find me.”

I want to. I want nothing more except for the sun to return. But I cannot.

“The abbot told me not to,” I say, and the words sound hollow to my own ears. They’re true enough, but what is he without a god to back his authority? What are any of us? “He told me… he told me to stay here and watch until it is done.”

It is then I hear the ripping of flesh. Poril, her imitator, cries out in agonies untold, thumping uselessly against the sealed door.

There is silence for a time afterward. I use it to watch the sun on its journey down. The sun is coming from below the horizon now, its remnants filtering into our empty cathedral. More light is coming from the sunstones, but it is flickering as it wanes.

“You really should let us in,” it says again in Poril’s voice. “This struggle is pointless.”

It is then, having nothing else to say or do, I recite the litanies. They are weak without the sun’s light to empower me, flung words at a stonewall. The only thing I accomplish is amusing the creature on the other side of the door.

“Your memory is excellent as always, Brother Alom,” it says now in the voice of my mentor, Darrius. His rich timbre vibrates in my chest before crashing down with a sickening thump in my gut.

Sol above, they are good at deception. I can practically see him now hunched over my desk, the golden pages of our holy book splayed between us, its silvery words on display for all to see.

“But I hardly think now is the time for a lesson,” he adds in a quieter, warning tone. “You need to let us in. Poor sister Poril here is liable to catch her death from cold.”

I know the taste of the words is like copper. It makes me want to retch, but I must say them, “Sister Poril is dead, Brother Darrius. And so are you.”

A deep chuckle comes from the other side. “Ah! Right you are, Alom, right as always. I hadn’t noticed until you pointed it out.”

The façade dropped, the creature growls, “You could never send us far. We were here the entire time, waiting for you in the dark.”

Two heavy thumps slam through the door and jolt me up. I fear it may shatter from the strikes, but the barred wood holds. “Wouldn’t you like to join us, brother? Isn’t it so lonely in there all by yourself?”

I hurry over to the altar as the last of the light bleeds away from the skies. The sunstones radiate a pleasant but fleeting warmth. I hold one, the brightest of those remaining, toward the door and recite the litanies once more.

The light dims inside the stone until I am left with a lump of useless rock. But I am rewarded for my efforts in other ways—the high-pitched keen of pain that comes from outside the cathedral. It is followed by the beating of hooves as the creature flees for a time.

I set the stones back down and resume my post at the door. The gesture of resistance is futile, I know, but I take satisfaction in it anyways. Let my last acts be of defiance and not of capitulation. Let me find solace in Saint Dellin’s teachings, that every human can be a light unto themselves.

When the sun has left and its gifts to the world fade completely, the demons return to the cathedral. I bathe in darkness while they beat at the door, and shout to me in voices I know too well.

They want to be let in. They want to tear me apart. They tell me my god is dead and I am the last left of my Order.

I believe them. Every vile word.

But I still hold the door until they are forced to break it down.