Exmortus II: Temples Diabolic

By Todd Maternowski

Abandoned by his family, his friends and his god, Ash Xavier finds himself utterly alone in a hostile world. Holding a mysterious key that may unlock the gates of Hell itself, Ash must choose whether to do the honorable thing and sacrifice his life for humanity's survival —or to embark on a mad quest for the woman he loves, a mysterious beauty that may be entirely a product of his imagination.

Meanwhile, a nightmarish terror from Ash's young childhood has resurfaced in the Abbey with plans to take his life...

EXMORTUS II: TEMPLES DIABOLIC is a compelling, profound and complex work of dark fantasy that plunges the reader into a world of hopeless romance, pathological obsession and the unrelenting search for power. Throughout it all, Ash Xavier searches for the truth: about men and gods, about the origins of life, about the possibility of redemption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Todd Maternowski
• Release date: Oct 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301831883

Todd Maternowski

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Todd studied Ancient Near Eastern religion and early Judeo-Christianity at the University of Chicago before heading into the real world. He has since worked as a ballroom dance instructor, bass player, mediator, credit specialist, art preparator, janitor, journalist, copy editor, armored car money counter, mambo dancer, and satirist. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his two tiny terrors.

Book preview

Book Two: Temples Diabolic

By Todd Maternowski

Copyright 2012 Todd Maternowski

Smashwords Edition

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ISBN-13:

9781301831883

What others are saying about EXMORTUS:

There are real night terrors in this world and they must be stopped at any cost... the action moves at a fast pace and for this reason Exmortus is an easy read, with the reader experiencing Ash’s journey with him and getting that sense of danger and urgency that reflects in his mission.

-Elloise Hopkins

It’s a fresh angle on the traveling story ... the dialogue felt genuine, the characters seemed real.

-Zen Cherry

The author's fantasy world is a harsh, brutal place where mistakes lead to death and trust is a commodity that's price may prove to be too high... The world is full of history and monuments that are interesting and bring to mind the vast scale and epic nature of Tolkien's works... If you like your fantasy brutal, then this is the book for you.

-Eric Swett

This is the perfect book for anyone who likes a good adventure story.

-A Bookish Affair

The characters are well developed, they grow on you, they make you laugh and add a solid amount of depth to an already deeply engaging story... This novel is hard to put down once the story kicks into high gear and never really lets up at any point.

-John Casanova

Dark fantasy literature with a sense of humor, which is not something you see all that often.

-Keith Riskey

A compelling and well written novel from a promising new author... For a debut novel, the growth process from start to finish is significant and given the end result, I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

-Matthieu Hausig

This is a great book for young readers, both male and female or anyone who loves a good book with believable characters.

-Night Owl Reviews

For Lola Rogue

Prologue

Star's come out again. Out there. To the southeast, out over the Towers of Dawn.

Skane didn't look where the moron was pointing. He had seen the demon star a half-hour ago. He ignored the man and drew the oiled whetstone over the edge of his blade. The sound it made was the most comforting noise he had ever known.

I'll be damned if I'm going anywhere near that accursed thing. We came too goddamn close to it over at Groendyke. No way, no how, no way.

Skane continued sharpening his sword, ignoring him. The other man, ridiculously overdressed in far too many layers of fur, mail and leather, stamped his feet in the snow and rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth. Skane knew when the idiot danced what was coming next.

"Hey, the assassins... they've been down there now for hours. That demon-star is coming back here. I just know it. We've got to strike now, if we mean to claim what's ours. Before the demon comes and takes it from us."

Skane put his whetstone away in his pack, laid back in the snow and closed his eyes, hoping that the man would shut up.

I should be so lucky.

Listen to me! We're dead men just sitting up here. I didn't come all this way just to freeze to death. Night is coming. Another night like last night and I'll die. Die here on this godforsaken mountain.

Skane crossed one leg over the other, put his gloved hands behind his head, and waited.

The other man looked down on Skane and sighed loudly, trying to make his exasperation obvious. Die here in the snow if you like. I'm heading out.

The other man trudged off into the forest. Normally Skane would've opened up the middle of his shoulder blades with a handaxe right there, but three of the four assassins were preoccupied down in Exmortus Abbey, while a fourth was bringing the horses around the south gate. There was little chance the idiot would give their position away now.

Skane closed his eyes and dozed for a few minutes, then rolled over through the snow to the crest of the ridge. The three in the Abbey were down there, somewhere, rooting around for something they had left behind. It must be pretty important, to come stumbling back here like drooling imbeciles. More important, even, than their own miserable lives. Let them find it, whatever it is. Then, and only then, let them find me.

He had studied them for days, watching who took which watch, what weapons they wielded, how they tracked in the snow. The big one would be a problem. The little one was hard to read, which made him especially dangerous. The tall, lanky one appeared to be the leader, but like every leader Skane had ever known, he was also the least equipped for an ambush in the snow. These leader types—these planners—never seem to plan for something like me. For death.

The bookish, plump one leading the horses around was the least of his worries. He would keep that one alive. Probably the leader too, if he didn't mouth off too much. Maybe remove some fingers or a hand if it came down to it. The big one and the small one would have to be killed outright. It wouldn't be easy —these two were very fast. But he had killed and captured far faster prey under worse conditions than this.

A noise down in the Abbey caught his attention. The big one and the small one were having a snowball fight. Skane licked his lips. They can't be serious. The world is a good—

The other man noisily dropped a pile of dry sticks in the snow, sat down and started rifling through his pack. He glanced at Skane through the corner of his eye. Skane quickly got to his feet, thumbing the handaxes on his belt.

Close the pack.

You can't tell me what to do.

Close the pack.

You don't even know what I'm taking out, so shut the hell up.

Skane calmly walked over to the crouching man. With a swift kick he knocked the pack out of his hands and sent it flying against the rock wall. He heard something shatter. Without looking back he walked back to the crest and looked down over the Abbey.

Goddamnit Skane! Goddamnit! I was, goddamnit, I was just—

Sweet, sudden silence. Skane did not turn to look. Is he coming behind me with a poisoned dagger? No, of course not. He doesn't have the guts. When the Cowled Ones had hired him for this job, they had paid in gold up-front on the condition that this other man Albert came with him. It was not an ideal situation but the gold was too good to pass up, and his contact said the other man was a skilled poisoner. That he had already assassinated a half-score of troublesome targets down in Helios.

He certainly boasts of it often enough. What kind of a paid killer brags about his work? I'd give good odds that those half-score victims were women, children and beggars.

When the Dukes had approached him with twice the gold for the same job, he had taken their money too. And they didn't demand he bring one of their lackeys along. The Golden Dukes, now, those are professionals. Here's your task, here's your money. Now go out there and get it done.

The Cowled Ones, however, were not as trusting. Or as trustworthy? Clearly they were in above their heads. They're weren't as familiar with this kind of work as the Dukes. A simple task, catching assassins. I just headed straight for where they originated from. Their home base. He knew other hunters were out there, perhaps dozens. Most of them were probably still scouring the area around Helios. Idiots.

Still, the silent man behind him was supposedly a seasoned killer. He listened for all the familiar sounds. The heavy breathing, the muttered curses, the sniffling, the clumsy footfalls in the greying snow.

Nothing.

Skane slowly turned around. The other man was still crouched where he had left him, slightly swaying with each tiny gust of wind. The back of his head was open. A milk-skinned man in soiled white robes was holding Albert's partially-eaten brain in his spindly fingers, studying it silently.

Skane quickly sized up the intruder. Queerly-scaled reptilian armor showed through holes in the man's filthy robes. He had no weapons, no shield. No helmet other than a single, wire-thin silver circlet crowning a head of short golden-brown hair. Face, neck, hands were exposed, everything else was likely armored. Skane sent both handaxes at the man's jaw.

They both hit, and yet missed.

The milk-white man drew his attention to Skane now, quickly but gently placing the brain back into the gaping hole in Albert's head. He smiled. Bits of grey matter fell from his teeth and into the snow.

Skane drew both his swords and braced himself against the ridge. A sturdy shove and he would be tumbling down the slope to the Abbey. Although that, at least, is better than having your brain eaten by ...what is this ghoulish creature?

Name yourself!

The milk-white man still stood there, grinning. He did not draw a weapon or advance. Neither of his axes, although he swore he saw them hit the man's neck and forehead, had seemed to make a mark.

Are you... are you human, or... ghost?

A look of concern passed over the milk-white man's eyes and his forehead crinkled in a worried frown. He stopped smiling, and put his hands in front of him with the palms out. One was covered in dark red stains and a solid chunk of hair and bone.

Stay back! Skane slowly circled back to his left, his back toward an outcropping, the steep ridge to his left in case he needed to leap.

The milk-white man kept his palms facing out towards Skane. A small smile returned to his thin, bloodless lips.

Timelessness cannot divide. The distinction between life and death is illusory, the man said as he licked the gore from his palm. Are you another killer?

The milk-white man's voice was that of a young man, proud and noble. Not a ghost, at least. Skane stood his ground.

My name is Skane. What do you want?

Are you another killer?

Just a hunter.

A hunter of men.

A hunter.

Put down your swords.

Skane's muscles tightened. He flexed the fingers on both hands. He told himself he had faced this type before, but it wasn't true.

Put down your swords. Skane.

Who are you?

A hunter.

Of what?

The milk-white man looked down the ridge to the Abbey.

Hunters.

Skane blinked and the man's clean white hand was inches from his face. He swung a hard right uppercut and connected but his sword bounced off the man's scaly, reptilian skin. A stab of pain shot through his chest and he lost control of his limbs and bowels. Skane slumped backwards onto the snow-covered rock wall behind him. He looked up.

The milk-white man held a heart, still beating, with a solid chunk of boiled leather, hair, bone and tiny ringlets of chainmail clasped within his bone-white fist. Some of the gold coins Skane had sewn under his armor were there, too. The man held the heart above his head and squeezed it, tiny hissing streams of dark red blood cascading onto the man's forked black tongue. He savored it for a moment, then turned back to Skane, laying motionless in the snow.

You came for those boys. Those sweet, innocent boys, down in the Abbey.

Skane tried to shake his head, No, but he no longer had any control over his body.

You came for them. But you can't have them. None of you can. They belong to me.

Skane's sky-blue eyes stared out at him, expressionless. A quiet gurgling sound came from his throat, and the cold body gave a single violent shudder. The white man sunk his long teeth into the dying heart and chewed slowly, with thoughtful deliberation.

He savored the juices for a minute, then spit a small brown lump of flesh into the snow. He casually tossed the rest of the heart over the ridge and looked down. The sound of a warhorn echoed from the Abbey, its long wail bouncing off the jagged rock walls around him, as if thousands of tiny warhorns answered the master's call. The milk-white man watched the scene below as a horse-sized hound emerged from a pile of rubble in the northern tip of the Abbey and howled.

A broad, skeletal grin enveloped his face.

They told me there is no better morsel than the heart of a killer. He looked over his bony shoulder at Skane's corpse. The hearts of a warrior, a hunter, were prized above all the others. Even above the newborn babes. The sacred bond of one who has taken a life.

With a sudden loud whistling noise the milk-white man inhaled deeply, his neck muscles going rigid as his body started shaking. His eyes bulged out, two bloodshot pink-white spheres protruding out of his strained, quivering face. He hissed through his clenched teeth, then slowly relaxed. He grinned as he picked a small bit of gristle and hair from his long, filed teeth and flicked it at Skane's corpse.

But to me they taste worse than shit.

Chapter One – The Body in the Chapel

The Abbott lunged for Ash's legs as he turned to walk up the stairs, grabbing Ash's knee with one hand and his ankle with the other and pulling him down. Ash's dislocated shoulder slammed into the hard stone wall with a sickening crunch, and for a moment his vision was drowned in waves of black liquid. The sharp sting of wet teeth on his good hand snapped him back to consciousness.

Father, you—!

The old man was manic, trying to pry open Ash's hand to get at the key. Ash jerked his hand away from the Abbott's mouth and delivered a swift kick to the sick man's face, once, twice, then a third and final time, with only half the force he could have used. The Abbott slunk back to the bottom of the stairwell, whimpering softly, his nose broken and bleeding.

Ash scampered to his feet quickly, feeling a pain like two steel bolts plunging into the joint in his shoulder. I might never be able to use this shoulder again. None of that will matter, anyhow. In two minutes I'll be facing the white demon. Bargaining for my life, for Steed's.

If I'm lucky.

You can't go! The demon will kill you and take it! He'll take the key!

Ash knew it was pointless to respond, but he couldn't help himself. This man was once a father to him. My mentor. My inspiration.

I don't know what this damned thing opens, but it's obviously not intended—

The demon cannot be trusted with that power!

Ash looked at the pathetic, crumpled heap of human cowardice crouched below him.

Seems to me, Father, that the demon was content to keep this thing hidden away from all—

You're going to destroy the world! Fool boy!

The old man spat at Ash's boots, then cowered from a hit that they both knew would never come. Ash pressed the key to his bad shoulder and trudged up the stairs towards the light. The hellhound that had bayed earlier was silent, but there was no mistaking that white-hot light as it poured through the crack in the cabinet door at the top of the stairs.

It found us. We spent the last month looking over our shoulders every three seconds, and it came upon us unawares all the same.

At least this time around I'm ready. No more running. No more hiding.

I'm... I'm ready to die.

Ash walked up the stairs, through the ruins of the Abbott's lodging and out onto the northern cloister with just one thing on his mind. Not the white demon, not if Steed was still alive, not the profound disappointment he had in the Abbott. The one thing that struck his mind was when one of the Mithras had nearly suffocated him to death between her giant, powerful thighs, while she worked him over down below. I could've easily pushed her off, to save myself. But I didn't. I chose to lay there and have her bring me to the very edge of oblivion.

He was close to death then, maybe closer than he was now. He could still taste the sweet, hot sweat in his mouth. He smiled, sighed and licked his lips.

I escaped from you, Death, a half year ago. I'm back, now, to pay off my debt.

As he emerged into the cloister a strange vibration sent a shiver through him. His shoulder and hands started tingling with tiny explosions of sharp pain. Odd. The walk through the rubble and snowdrifts was slow going, but easier the closer he got to the chapel. He passed the kitchens and the infirmary, now little more than charred wooden splinters, and made a note to go back later and look for any surviving medicenes or herbs that Simon could use. He passed the Meadpipes, now melted into a formless metallic blob. He wondered what sound they would make now, if any.

He picked up speed. The bright light seemed to be coming from the chapel itself. Was the demon in there the whole time, waiting, as I half-expected, on a throne made of piles of priests' bones? His stomach felt nauseous, as if he had eaten twice his body weight in honeyed steak, and his shoulder started to throb with electricity. He pressed on.

When he came to the hellbeast they had slain in the courtyard, Ash looked back to see if the old man was following him. The Abbott is clearly insane. He wants this key more than anything else in the world. It's unwise to turn my back to him.

His dirk was lost in the melee, but he knew where his sword was. He walked up to the hellhound and saw that it was still breathing, slowly and heavily. The flow of blood had stopped, and in the light he could see the beast's mouth covered in glistening drool. The creature's eyes were soaking wet, though he couldn't say whether it was from melting snow or sweat or tears. He tucked the key into his breast pocket near Lara's clasp and the wooden charm Suboq had given him.

Better make this quick, in case the old priest jumps me. Ash walked around to the other side of the beast, gently kicking the hound's massive head to see what it was still capable of. It shuddered and looked directly at him, but otherwise did nothing. Ash knelt down and softly pulled the creature's head up off the dark red soil —did all this snow really melt so fast? How long was I down there?—and grabbed the shark's head hilt of his longsword embedded deep in its ear. He tugged on it, ready for the beast to snap at him, but neither budged.

Well, shit.

Ash sat down on the gore-caked ground, put both of his feet up on the beast's jawline and neck and wrapped his gloved fingers tightly around the hilt of his sword. His bad arm hung loose at his side, sending jolts of pain up his neck whenever he scraped it along the ground. He grimmaced and withstood the pain all the same. I must be getting used to it because it doesn't feel as bad as it did a half an hour ago.

He pulled on the hilt with all he had, amazed at just how much strength he had left. The sword came halfway out out of the skull so fast that Ash's head and neck slammed into a busted cobblestone behind him, its jagged corner digging into the nape of his neck.

Aaaaggghfuck!

The pain stopped in an instant —either my nerves are too fried to feel pain, or I'm freezing to death and don't realize it yet— and Ash crabwalked back two feet and slid the rest of the sword out of the creature's skull. The blade was sticky with gray matter and red fluid, dribbling from its ear out onto the ground. The beast shook its head like a dog drying itself and issued a loud, sorrowful moan that echoed off the walls.

Ash got to his feet, wiped the blood and brains on his tunic and considered finishing off the beast before remembering the demon waiting for him in the cathedral. Ash bent down to the near-dead animal, stroked a patch of dried blood behind its ear and whispered, Good girl. There there. Good girl. Two large orange-white eyes stared at him, then blinked, then closed.

He looked around once more for the old man, sheathed his sword, removed the key from his breastpocket and walked inside.

A surge of blinding white light hit Ash like a saltwater wave during a squall, nearly knocking him flat on his back. The light was like nothing he had ever experienced before: thick, heavy, syrupy. It blasted into his nostrils and mouth and filled his throat and stomach until he could not breathe. It rushed into his ears, muffling any and all sound, flowing into his skull and surrounding his brain with what felt like thick cream. The light seeped into the spaces between his body and his clothes until they threatened to strain and pop off of him. All of his cuts and wounds were immediately filled to bursting with the heavy white light, crushing his senses in a mixture of intense pleasure and indescribable pain. His skin, his whole body, was so hot to the touch that he felt he could shoot fireballs from his fingertips.

His eyes were blinded at first, but after a few seconds the white light washed over them and he could see everything clearly, the edges of his vision burning with the bright, straight rays of the sun. Before him Steed was lying prone, sprawled out where he had left him. Ziggy was holding down his right arm and leg, Simon his left.

Kneeling on top of the big man was a short old man with leathery brown skin and a short-cropped salt-and-pepper beard, naked from head to toe except for his sandals. The man had his left hand on the Tome, lying on its pedestal, and his right was moving up and down and across and into Steed's shoulder. The old man had a huge erection and was spilling a continuous stream of semen around his feet and across Steed's chest. His eyes were closed tightly and he appeared to Ash to be rapidly blinking in and out of existence. Powerful bolts of light exploded from the Tome and were absorbed by the man's open palm, where they traveled up through his arm, across his chest, down through his other arm and into Steed's shoulder, which was blazing with white light. The marble tiles beneath the big man were black and charred.

Ash vomited several gallons of thick golden fluid and watched it pool on the floor around his feet. He looked back at the old man. Ziggy and Simon were surrounded by vomit as well.

The man gave a quick glance at Ash standing in the doorway, then closed his eyes tightly and continued working. Steed's body was motionless, his skin flushed dark purple and the stupidest shit-eating grin Ash had ever seen across his wide face. Ash could not help but stare at the old man's member and wonder if Steed was experiencing the same thing under his kilt.

Ash clumsily placed the key back in his pocket, his long fingers swollen to the size and shape of pork sausages. Unsure if he could walk on his stiff legs and feet, he crouched down onto his knees and crawled over to Steed's body. The old man paid him no attention.

Ash suddenly recognized him. He watched in helpless silence as the man muttered a repetitive chant, a string of words in a language he could not understand. Ash stared in awe at Steed's mangled shoulder. A half-hour ago it was a gory mess of blood, muscle, chainmail and bone—now, blinding white light streamed out of a mostly blood-free depression the size of two large fists. The skin around it crackled like a log, giving off bright white and light blue sparks that illuminated the golden miasma hanging thick around them. The old man thrust his palm deep into the wound, his wrinkled fingers digging into the flesh as if it were ground meat. Every few seconds Steed would cough, and golden fluid dribbled out of the side of his mouth and onto the floor beneath his head.

Well, the least I can do is to give my half-brother some dignity. He knelt at Steed's head and dabbed at the drool, cleaning miasma and sweat off the big man's swollen, purple face.

The hours flew by, Ash doing and thinking of nothing but cleaning up his brother's mouth, vomiting large quantities of white-gold fluid when his belly became too distended. Simon and Ziggy did the same. No one spoke a word, other than the old man's quiet chanting. Ash felt warm and cozy, more comfortable than he had at any point in his entire life. He still had his clothes and armor on—nevertheless, he felt naked and childlike, crouched over his brother, his shoulder and the white demon and Blackspire and the Dukes nothing but a distant forgotten memory. His whole being focused on the single fleeting slice of moment he was experiencing right now, enveloping every inch of his body and flowing in and out of every pore and orifice. Time both stood still and sped up in irregular bursts, rendering everything outside of the ruined chapel completely meaningless. He did not even notice the rays of dawn poking through the gaping roof until the old man closed the Tome, cracked the knuckles on his hands and collapsed into sleep.

Ash did not have the strength to raise his eyes to Ziggy and Simon, and expected they felt the same. He curled up into a ball on the blackened stone floor, his every muscle drained, and gently put his head to the ground, his face to the northern door.

As his eyes tried to clamp shut from sleep, he saw a large black form blocking the door. It wobbled unsteadily, then growled.

Chapter Two – Under the Crypt

The black form emitted a deep, rumbling growl, and although Ash's eyes were wedged shut with the heaviness of sleep he felt the vibrations through the stone floor beneath him. A wet, foul, salty stench smacked him in the face as it came near. He tried raising his hand to protect his face but his arm was too heavy, his muscles too tired, his center of gravity dragging him down miles beneath the surface of the earth, pinning him helplessly to the floor. The beast sniffed around his head, then shoved a wet nose into his jaw.

Torain, help me. I don't want to end up like those drifter corpses we found in the brewery, their faces chewed off, unrecognizable.

Torain, please... help me.

He heard a muffled whumpf, and the beast's heavy breathing retreated. Ash felt a piece of coarse, sweat-stained cloth graze his nose and forehead. The old man yelled something in a language he didn't understand, a short, staccato command that drove the beast off a short distance.

Ash pried his eyes open. Through two tiny slits he saw the creature pad to a corner of the chapel and lay down. Dark black spots had replaced the daggers and multicolored arrow shafts in the beast's side. He looked up just as the old man stepped over him toward the creature, still naked but for his sandals, and the man's erect and unshaven member passed a foot above Ash's face. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to forget what he had just seen, with no success.

I hate animals. Goddamn hound, he knows not to come in here. Go on—get!

Ash stopped fighting his body, gave into his