Rudra was back in his dreams- where the past had always haunted him. He was back in Alaka where he had trapped Tris thousands and thousands miles away from the entire human civilization. He was at the sky through one of the windows which was nothing more than empty holes with rotten frames. He felt his stomach rolling in an odd way. His head also throbbed loudly like a second heart. The infamous cursed disease of the North already taking over his body within the second day of Tish's imprisonment.
He smiled even as he leaned against the wall. For he knew even the curse of North couldn't kill him- ironically, creatures like Dragons and Saints with healing properties were only ones who could venture in these lands without dropping dead in a month. Even then his body was taking time to get habituated to the extreme conditions.
Tish had been a lot worse. Rudra had not needed to put her in a cage. She had retired to a bed herself in a room right beside the one which suspiciously looked like a library but with several glass vials containing unknown liquids and strange diagrams drawn on large pages- which were pinned to the wall.
However, it was the least weird place in the entire castle. When Tish had passed out, he had secured her unconscious form in the bed and ventured to investigate and secure the perimeter. And deep within the castle he had found places which looked entirely out of this world.
The entire castle was built in a way Rudra had never witnessed before. Castles are usually built to keep the outsiders at bay. This one? It was built as if it was trying to contain something inside.
The outside walls were too thick even for a castle- atleast three meters-althought it did very little to keep the cold at bay. As he walked around he found that in one of the rooms near it's periphery, clothes hung from hooks made of strange material. They were too soft to be armours, to thick to be robes. The corridors were too straight, with a series of successive glassed doors- which defied any logic of defense. Almost as if the people living here were confident in whatever god they were worshipping to keep anything hostile at bay.
Rudra kept walking as he took notes of small sealed openings at regular intervals, too small for a person, too deliberate to be decorative.
Rudra continued down a corridor with walls lined with panels of some dark, unknown material- top smooth to be stone, too dark to be glass. Some of the panels had strange circular gauges mounted on them- glass faces with markings and needles. All the needles of pointing at the maximum markings- of which Rudra didn't know- he wasn't even sure he wanted to know.
He passed a set of doors with small glass windows with eye-height showing rooms full of shattered glasses and overturned tables. There were handprints here and there hinting someone had leaned against the wall centuries ago before making a run or atleast trying to run away from wherever he was heading.
When Rudra finally reached the heart of the castle, he had to pause for few seconds at the sheer enormous size of the room atleast twenty times bigger than any grand ballroom he had ever entered. There he had finally found the god of Alaka- whatever had protected this land and cursed it.
It wasn't shaped in any human form. It was more like a large cylindrical structure made of unknown materials. At one place it was partially collapsed suggesting whatever was inside it- perhaps the Alakan God- had escaped therefrom long ago causing death and destruction of his own land and devotees.
Mermerized, Rudra stared at the perfect concentric rings around the structure upon the floor- probably a diagram left by the ancient God when he had freed himself from the cylindrical cage and cursed the entire land. The rings spread like ripples on the floor- the innermost ring being darkly stained.
Rudra walked over them nearing the cylindrical structure and found the stone shaped like it had been melted and frozen back. Much like how stones melt by dragon fire. Or by volcano. But there was no volcano here.
Then perhaps the ancient God also had been a dragon?
Rudra kept looking around until he found the map of the castle. Along with several notes starting with clear precise handwriting which became more and more urgent and erratic towards the end with occasional diagrams of the central structure, diagrams of human figures with specific areas marked- areas where Rudra was suspiciously aching. It seemed that whoever wrote those notes had clear understanding of the curse and how it took over the body.
However, it was the last page of a particular diary which made Rudra pause. There was no diagram in it. Just words. Written in the large scratchy handwriting in the same unknown scripture. Rudra couldn't read it ofcourse but he had a feeling that the writer desparately wanted the reader to know whatever he had written.
Perhaps the writer of those notes had finally realised that the Alakan God he and his companions were worshipping weren't a god but some hungry all devouring creature.
Suddenly he noticed a small movement , just out of the corner of his eyes. Rudra marched in that direction, his heart beating fast. He found himself standing before a smaller room off the main corridor, the door standing open.
Rudra peered inside.
It was Tish, she knelt upon the ground, her back towards him. She looked like she was praying.
"Tish," Rudra called dryly, "Did you abandon you God and decided to make a new pact with the Alakan God?"
"Hush," Tish whispered out, terrified, "Don't you hear the screams? I can hear them. The Deads. God they died in so much pain!" Her voice was choking.
Rudra frowned, wondering if the curse also made people hallucinate. He stepped into the room, walking around the strange structures, "Scream of who? There is no soul in Alaka- except you and I, Tish."
"No, there are others," Tish insisted and jerked her chin, "Look around."
Rudra paused and finally finally looked. The structures on the floor were bodies or whatever the time and cold weather had left of them. Hundreds of figures still in their full-body garments, collapsed in their various positions.
Rudra knelt down checking the bodies. They didn't die violent death. No cuts. No wounds.
No signs of struggle.
Some of them were sitting around tables. Some just standing, leaning against the wall. Most were lying near the door on th opposite side from the central chamber- as if they were trying to leave.
The devotees of Alakan gods had dark stains on their garments and around their face coverings- blood stains.
"What has happened to them?" Rudra asked, with half awe and half horror, "Poisoning?"
"Something much worse," said Tish, she looked back at him, her eyes were glowing golden- the holy magic - but she was crying, "The thing they made, raised and cared for ultimately killed them. The thing they loved killed them."
Rudra couldn't talk. But Tish carried on, "Just like you, Rudra."
"The thing that you love will kill you."