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    Journey to the Spire
    Journey to the Spire
    Journey to the Spire
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    Journey to the Spire

    By Lex Williams

    ()

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    About this ebook

    WARNING: Contains high impact horror and mature themes. Discretion is advised.

    In the darkness beneath the thick canopy of the Orphic Forest, something watches. Inhuman beasts crawl within its clutches, having appeared alongside a mysterious castle.
    Where did they come from? How does one make an entire castle appear overnight? Why has it appeared in paintings that have been long since completed?
    And what, if anything, does the instigator of this strangenes want?
    These are all questions the detective, Temel, seeks to answer as he investigates this castle, drawing ever nearer to ... the Spire.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLex Williams
    Release dateFeb 18, 2017
    ISBN9781370510436
    Journey to the Spire
    Author

    Lex Williams

    Lex Williams is a novelettist ( although occasionally writing novellas with the rare novel ) whose intent is to take advantage of self-publishing stories to provide interesting, different and weird ideas that you won't find in traditionally published stories. Williams typically writes for the horror genre ( usually dipping into the surreal variety ), but has explored other areas, such as ( non erotic ) romance and science fiction.

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      Book preview

      Journey to the Spire - Lex Williams

      Journey To The Spire

      Lex Williams

      Distributed by Smashwords

      Copyright 2017 Lex Williams

      Thanks to my editor, Lee Cope, who I found through writerfind.com.

      Thanks to my cover artist, Pius Pranoto, who I found at deviantart.com under the username, telaga.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

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      1

      The tall, thin figure sitting at the desk was backlit by the flickering light of the gas lamps through the window. The light was diffused by the haze of cigarette smoke. Temel leaned on his elbows, supporting his chin with one hand clasped around the other. His cigarette glowed with each breath.

      It was a cold June's night, and it was about to get colder.

      Is it wrong to envy the dead? Is it wrong to see living as a curse? What greater abuse is there than bringing something to life, in all its disgusting and foetid reality, and then make it want to keep existing?

      I've seen what happens when people die – young men dying for the honour of the old. In the dirt and the muck. The inglorious squalor of a soldier's existence only made harder by the lack of control over their own fate.

      Temel's eyes glistened in the dim light. They suggested a presence of mind that had long since been taken prisoner by the past.

      I held his hand. The blood just kept flowing. You never think of a human being as a walking blood bag, but violence will teach you better. The gurgling and the groaning. His body convulsed like it was possessed. I saw the fear in his eyes, staring at something … but what?

      His face twisted into a look of terror. Even as his body relaxed his face remained in a permanent grimace. His eyes pleaded for mercy. I could offer only the feeble gift of my presence as what remained of him left his body.

      His hand dropped and I watched as the instruments and mechanisms of a man's body spilled onto the ground. Those fleshy sacks of putrid liquids splashed against his lifeblood. I tried, shivering with foolish anxiety, to put them back in him, but I was no watchmaker of the body. I didn’t understand the way those sagging, loose pieces fit together.

      With that twisted terror still present in his eyes, and his bowels ejecting faeces down his pant legs, I saw the true horror of existing. The putrescent blight of living things spoiling everything around them.

      Temel pulled the cigarette butt out of his mouth and crushed it into an ashtray. The remaining smoke twisted upward.

      The dead have moved on from this tangible existence of taking and poisoning. I had considered joining them. I had my noose and my chair. I was ready to end the torment.

      But I was a coward. My greatest sin, however, was not cowardice but foolishness – in thinking I had to go on and would never muster the courage to give myself the only thing I truly deserve.

      He opened the drawer to his desk and pulled out the revolver. His other hand moved out of habit, grabbing loose bullets and fitting them into his pocket. The chamber clicked open. Six rounds – but he'd only need one. It clicked shut.

      His thumb rested on the hammer.

      There was a knock at his door. He slipped the revolver into its holster on his chest. Come in.

      Temel grabbed a cigarette with one hand and lit a match with the other. A strong woman in military clothing entered. The tip of his cigarette burned. He snuffed out the match.

      The woman wore the dark coat of an officer and walked with the measured pace of a soldier who'd marched a thousand times across a thousand battlefields.

      Typical useless military uniform – not even the old plate armour of a few hundred years ago could withstand the impact of a bullet. It was ceremonial and, perhaps, a little reminder of how close you were to death. Your own personal 'momento mori', as if a soldier needed that.

      The dearth of any recognisable markings on her uniform made Temel shift in his seat. She sat down opposite him and stared with a steely look he recognised.

      This woman is a killer, and not the 'protect the people' kind, more the 'rape and pillage' kind.

      He stared back. Miss?

      Zorana.

      Temel sighed a breath of cigarette smoke. "What brings a woman

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