What Lies Dreaming by Eneasz Brodski

Author:Eneasz Brodski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, fantasy, dark fantasy, rome, alternate history, historical fantasy, lovecraft, existential horror
Publisher: Eneasz Brodski

Cornelius and his crew fill the stairways at either end of the Market with as much debris as they can find as the mob tears open shop doors. You don’t know if the noise will carry, but you’d rather be safe. With the stairways blocked, anyone coming to investigate from the Forum will have to go the long way around.

You bind your hand tightly as they work. The doors to the shops break without much trouble. The grain dole office and storehouse are another matter. Their doors are iron-bound and double locked. The sledgehammers and pry-bars don’t budge them. With growing horror you realize you’ll have to leave the grain and the claim tokens behind. Nausea bites into your guts. There isn’t enough time to force these doors open. Hundreds of fully armored Praetorians will be here in maybe a quarter hour.

The coppery tang of blood mingles with the rotting meat smell of the city. The cobblestones glisten slick with blood. You take in the death around you, the seeping bodies. This was all for nothing.

Oh gods, what will you tell these people?

The doors will open. You will not leave before they do.

Madness. There is no time. Is this to be a slaughter? Did the gods bring you here not for your redemption, but their vengeance?

You will not leave before the doors open!

“Hey chief, I think my guys found something useful.” Cornelius stands at the threshold of a busted-in doorway, motioning for you to come. When the hell did you become “chief”? It sounds bizarre coming from the older man’s mouth.

“What?” The word falls flat from your mouth. You killed all these people. Their deaths bought nothing.

“I dunno, some kind of fancy purple granite. Big ol’ hunk of it.”

You come. You peek into the store. It’s as he said--a block of granite the color of deep wine, about a foot thick and wide, and three feet tall. It shimmers with embedded mica. The topmost six inches have been worked heavily with a chisel, though you can’t tell what form it’s meant to take. You look from the unborn statue to Cornelius.

“What is it?” you ask.

“Well, it looks like a damn fine battering ram to me.”

The doors will open.

“Fuck me…” you breathe. You step inside. “Cornelius, go grab the two biggest guys out there.” You grab him as he moves past you, wrapping him in a quick embrace and planting a kiss on his cheek. “You are a damn genius.”

“Shit, first time I ever been called that.” But he smiles as he says it.

Minutes later the door to the administrative office bursts open. Cornelius scuttles in with a group of workmen hauling heavy cracking tools. You peek in for just a second, taking in the locked chests and stacks of ledgers.

“Hurry,” you urge him. “And don’t forget to burn the papers.”

The makeshift ram is damned heavy, but between three people it’s manageable. You shuffle carefully to the storeroom door, the surrounding crowd careful to give you plenty of room. Anticipation charges the air, a leashed joy straining at its rope, on the verge of breaking free.

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