I was surprised that the ruins of the ancient Hombaroth civilization were still intact. It had to be at least four hundred years since I last visited them. Arriving at just half an hour before midnight, all fifty members of the Order of the Claws of Gamidalr, an evil cult I had been traveling with for the past few weeks, picked up the pace or the time limit for the ritual would pass. We entered the temple at top of the cliffside in a single file line. Our only source of light came from seven burning torches each carried by a member spread out in the line. Our identical dark cloaks mingled with the surrounding darkness, making it difficult to pinpoint who was going where—which meant I had to go by the sounds of the footsteps around me.
At the very center of the line was a barefoot young woman. She looked no older than eighteen or nineteen years, with long hair as bright red as an apple, and she was wearing a raggedy sleeveless white dress covered in dirt stains. Her bare skin was covered in dark purple bruises from getting beaten by some of the cult members (not myself, of course, but I did watch it happen). The tall husky man in front of her held a thick metal chain leash connected to her slave collar, and he yanked it frequently for her to keep up. Meanwhile, the man behind her had the tip of his broad short sword pointing at her back to ensure she didn't try escaping. I kept my eye on her as well.
While I was towards the back of the line, the most difficult part was matching the rhythm of everyone else's movements. Putting one foot in front of the other, marching in unity meant submitting to conformity, which had never been a strong suit of mine. But I did it anyway because I may get caught if I was not in sync with the rest of the group.
Right step. Pause. Left step. Pause. Right step. Turn. Pause. At this rate, it was going to be sunrise by the time we got there.
We ascended several flights of a hundred spiraling stairs each and went through a series of long arched stone corridors. Twenty-five minutes passed like this until we finally reached the innermost sanctum of the ruins. The room was a large circular cathedral with the ceilings being at least seventy feet high with several scattered skylight holes letting in tonight's rare red moonlight. At least thirty rows of old benches made of rotting and broken wood were set up around the circumference of the pedestaled center.
We as a cult began to file into the room, clustering even more together as we approached the stone steps in the center pedestal with rough edges and a diameter of only ten feet. As the rest of us crowded around, a path was cleared for the leader, two of his main subordinates, and the young woman to make it onto the stone pedestal.
The two men wrestled the young woman onto the podium and made her kneel, strapping her hands that were already bound with thick rope down to an iron hook imbedded into the stone. Her sobs were punished by hard slaps across her face, leaving her with purple bruised cheeks. Then the men wrapped a ripped strip of thick dingy cloth around her eyes so she could not see for when they committed the deed. They also stuffed a balled-up piece of muddy cloth into her mouth, muffling her weeping.
I was watching her suffer as I blended in with the back of the pack so that no one else notices I was not chanting along with them. Everybody else had their hands folded in prayer as they were reciting words from a long-forgotten language, one that was unfamiliar even to me.
While the rest of us had our hoods up covering their heads and eyes, the leader—I could swear his name's Ocfort Quant—had his hood off, his bald head and dozens of black and red facial magical rune tattoos exposed for all to see. Ocfort stood atop the pedestal at the center of the circle, raised his arms up as if praising the Gods, which signaled for the rest of the group to stop chanting.
"My brothers, my comrades in arms, our night is here." Ocfort began, "The time has finally come. Soon, the Great Lord Gamidalr shall be reborn, and our world shall plunge into a new perfect era. Haza!" He pumps his right fist into the air as he says that last part.
"Hazza! Hazza!" The rest of cult members mimicked this, shouting in unison. "Glory to Gamidalr!"
It was amusing, really, I thought to myself. The things people believe tend to manifest into the mortal realm if they followed and worshiped it hard enough. I stifled a chuckle while keeping my head bowed, but I was still the only one in the group who was not cheering. As my incredible luck would have it, no one else noticed.
Suddenly, someone from the crowd stepped up two stairs onto the pedestal and presented Ocfort with what looked like a long stick wrapped in white bandages. As Ocfort unwrapped it, the glint of steel caught my eye and I realized that was the cult's sacred dagger they intended to kill the girl with.
Okay, I think I'd had enough of this.
I yawned loudly, which everyone else heard. Then I began to make my way through the crowd towards the pedestal and up its stone steps. This caught everyone's attention and they all halted what they were doing, just what I was asking for. They all stared in my direction as I was bumping shoulders, but they soon cleared a path for me leading to the alter. A casual strut, but at the same time hurrying my steps forward because I could not miss this opportunity.
Once I reached the top of the pedestal, a big fat man, another member, stepped in front of me, blocking my path. His arms bulged with muscles beneath the long sleeves of his pitch-black cloak, and he towered over me at least a good two or three feet taller than I. Even though his musty eyes were concealed by his hood, I could tell he was giving me a serious death glare.
"What is the meaning of this?" He boomed in a gruff voice. "You are disgracing your brothers here as well as Gamidalr by interrupting the ritual."
I ignored his remark and walked right passed him toward where the red-head girl was still kneeling. Her whimpers were apparent and noticeably audible once I was standing in front of her, my shadow looming over her small and frail figure. After a moment, I bent down and pulled out the dirty cloth in her mouth. She gagged a little and took a few long deep breaths as though she had been holding her breath for several minutes. I then knelt down to meet her eye level, even though she couldn't see me due to the dingy cloth strip still around her eyes. I gently grabbed her chin in my left hand like I was about to kiss her, but that was not my intention.
Her face was drenched in sweat, and it rolled onto my fingers. As I pulled her bowed head to face up at me, her lower lip quivered. Still holding her chin, I told her, "Do you want me to save you? All you have to do is say so."
She didn't respond with a "yes" or "no". Instead she made a confused "Huh?" noise.
A rolling wave of gasps was coming from Ocfort and his few lapdogs standing nearby because they heard what I had said. There was then a mass of mumbles from the crowd behind me.
Ocfort then stepped forward and said, "What is going on? What are you doing?"
He approached me, dagger still in his hands, and he may have had every intention to use it on me as well. But I stopped him with one hand, my palm in his face, and with a glance I looked into his soul where his hourglass was filled with surprisingly bright sky-blue sands. In reality, it opened a white and yellow glowing spell circle. I used my magic to tip Ocfort's hourglass onto its side, pausing his time and rendering him unable to move or even speak. I couldn't risk any interference with that dagger of his just yet.
As the other cult members watched, they began to realize I was not a loyal follower to their precious Claws of Gamidalr. I felt the many pairs of sinister eyes glaring at me, and I quickly heard the sounds of metal sliding on metal and leather. Some of them were unsheathing their concealed weapons, mostly small blades and knives, waiting for the right time to ambush.
That was when I noticed a scorching ashy smell coming from Ocfort. The numerous Gamidalr occult tattoos and markings all over his body were slowly but gradually burning away my spell circle cast upon him. This was not a first for me, someone else being able to nullify my unique magic. However, Ocfort was the most rapid at it I'd seen yet.
I turned back to the girl in a hurry. "Do you want to die like this?" I asked.
This time, she immediately shook her head.
I grinned. "Then I will ask you again: do you want me to save you?"
It took a minute more, and with mere moments away from Ocfort being able to order his cult brothers to kill both of us. My spell circle was almost completely blazed away, and I could see that Ocfort's face and throat muscles were twitching.
The girl's voice was crackled and hoarse, but she finally got to say through her crying, "Save me…Please, please save me."
Just then, the spell circle was gone, and Ocfort gasped as he reared his head back as far as it could go. He saw through one of the skylight holes in the soaring ceilings that the red light in the moon was already waning.
He shouted in both fury and distress, "Kill him! Kill the traitor! And then kill the sacrifice before it's too late!"
As the swarm of cult members obeyed Ocfort's command and lunged at me, I cast a different spell circle, choosing to utilize an hourglass that engulfed these ruins. It was one powerful enough to expand a semi-sphere barrier made of gold and white light and numerals around myself and the girl. Everything outside this barrier was completely frozen in time. More than forty men of the Order of the Claws of Gamidalr stopped in midair, but only a handful of them appeared to be aware of the change.
This time, even if Ocfort's tattoos and markings could burn up this spell, it wouldn't be as fast as before. I smiled at my successful timing and took a short gander at the men around the barrier, surveying which were closest and deciding who I should go after first.
Then I turned back to the red-head girl and raised my right hand toward her. Spreading my fingers apart activated my magic to untie the rope that was binding her hands to the iron hook in the ground as well as the strip of dirty cloth covering her eyes. She opened her eyes that were a surprising dark gray, and she stared up at me and cowered.
But before she could crawl away, I informed her, "Do not leave the barrier. Right now, we are the only ones unaffected by the temporal time-freezing spell I just cast. Exit it, and the last thing you may see is a sword running through your heart."
She sat down with her hands on her lap and asked me, "Why…why are you doing this?"
"I thought hanging around these guys could be fun, but I guess I was wrong. Especially when it came to pillaging innocent villages and kidnapping someone like you for such a pitiful sacrificial ritual." I told her, shaking my head.
"But, wait. Aren't you…I mean, are you not…" She struggled to find the right words.
I lightly slapped my own forehead and interrupted her, "Ah, of course. Where are my manners?"
In one fell swoop, I yanked off my dark cloak concealing his true attire. White robes and capes with golden lining over a black long-sleeve shirt and light gray pants. Brown traveler's boots adorned with buckles on my feet and long gold string earrings dangled from my ears, fluttering and jingling with a gleam beneath the moonlight. With huge smile beaming on my face, I then bowed to her in a gentleman's manner, one arm crossing over my chest with my hand over my heart and having the other arm behind my back.
I introduced myself, "Greetings, fair lass. The name is Couther Clyne, and I assure you: I worship no god. And you are?"
She stared at me in both awe and bewilderment. Her eyes were wide and her jaw dropped. It took a while for her to muster her composure, but she soon managed to tell me her name through a quivering tone, "Um…Joycie. My name's Joycie Frow."
"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, my dear Joycie. Now then, just stay put, okay?" I then straightened my posture and turned back around to face the cult still frozen in time and about to attack me. I grinned big enough to bare my teeth with murderous intent and wanting to see what these cult members were really capable of. "I shall handle this by myself," I said.