Creative Writing Challenge: Task #2: Chthonic

This is my entry for Creative Writing Challenge: NUMBER TWO

Sponsored by: @steemfluencer

As seen here: https://steemit.com/writing/@steemfluencer/the-creative-writing-challenge-task-2

The Rules of the Challenge:

Take a look at your book shelves again. Pick a dictionary. Find a word which meaning you don't know. Don't read the definition, nor in the book itself and neither anywhere else.

Option 2:

Write a short essay (min. 300 words) related to an unknown word. Use your creativity muscle and surprise us with something outstanding. Surprise yourself as well :). Both non-fictional and fictional essays are accepted.

CHTHONIC was the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day for Aug 6. I don't have a hardcopy dictionary to really pick from, so I figured a random Google for 'word of the day' and picking the first result would work here!

As seen here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/chthonic-2017-08-06

Chthonic

The young squire ran down the long flight of stone steps, which curved downwards around the center pillar of the tower, into unfathomable blankness.

He was sure he had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

The stone was cold and wet around him, and the last rays of evening light that trickled down from the arrow-slit windows far above him cast faint ghosts of reflection off the shallow puddles on the steps. He worried that if he stepped in one of those scant pools, it might fool him and be truly bottomless, and he might somehow be pulled through a hole in the stone no larger than the soles of his feet.

He shook his head as he ran, trying to clear the whispers of fear that reached out for his shoulders and plucked at his collar. He knew if he turned back to look he would surely trip and fall backwards down the stairs.

He was a squire for the king's son, the Prince, and was protected by the Lord Jesus and the Lady Virgin Savior. There was no darkness that could touch him, much less hold him back.

"By the Lady's Grace, I pray for your protection," he whispered, casting a wary glance at his guttering torch as he clutched the necklace that dangled from around the clammy skin of his neck.

He had been told by the Prince to bring something from the depths of this tower. The Prince had been in a fit of rage at the time, angered about some slight or insult upon his honor by one that contended for the future rights to the throne. The Prince wanted resolution for this slight. He had insisted that a precedent be set. A line in the sand be drawn.

After having destroyed expensive chairs and smashed an absurd amount of crystal goblets, the Prince had settled into a terrible calm, but his eyes had held something else.

"Johanssen," he had said to his young squire, after having grabbed the latest full goblet of wine from the boy's tray and emptying it. "Johanssen, bring me the Chthonic."

Johanssen stumbled downwards into the darkness, not knowing what he was looking for but knowing, at least, what it was called. And that it was at the bottom of this tower, a secret that the Prince himself seemed to be pleased to know. He had said it was an ancient weapon his own grandfather had told him of once, a prize owned by only the King and used only in the most dire of circumstances.

The Prince had said this situation was most dire indeed, and as the direct blood of the King it was his by rights.

Dire indeed.

The phrase echoed in Johanssen's head, and spiderwebs clung to the boy, wet and thick on his sweaty face, and his wide eyes saw the bottom of the tower, the torchlight barely making a dent in the dense blackness.

"Nay, this is no bottom," the boy said to himself, his feet splashing into fetid water. The bottom of the tower was water, which was itself some interminable depth.

Johanssen's courage was starting to splinter, and he bolstered it by clenching his fists and thinking of the bravery of the Prince and his knights and the king and swords and strong, terrible warhorses.

Johanssen stepped into the water, not sure how far he would truly be willing to go. As the ancient, freezing water reached the bottom of his ribcage and he started to float, and the panic leapt into his heart, his feet did touch the bottom.

He saw a door at the far end of the rippling pool, his yellow torchlight casting reflections off detritus and dust and floating things that may have once been alive.

He blinked slowly, then took a deep breath and waded to the door, trying to make his steps deliberate so as not to fall forward and lose his torch in the water. That thought cast a new ripple of fear into his blood.

The ancient arched doorway rose above him, the wood that framed the outside long since rotted away from the waterline down, and the flayed bits of the thick door that still clung to the rusted hinges above the water was askew and tired.

Johanssen's torch caught letters above the door, etched in the stone lintel above in High Ancient letters, beautiful and forlorn.

Chthonic.

He paused, then turned and looked back behind him as if considering if he should proceed or retreat.

But the stairs were gone. The faint reflections from the tiny windows in the round stairwell were gone, and the boy had no idea which way he had come.

"Lord Jesus and His Twelve Saints, please aid me," he whispered, eyes clenched tight. "Give me the path."

There was no sound other than the dull splashing of water around him, which echoed like crazed whispers.

His breath came in short gasps, and he hurriedly waded through the water, under the arch of the doorway, into the utter darkness of the Chthonic.

"Ah, finally," a voice said, dry and brittle with age and dust.

It was a man, probably, in a thick robe, hunched and covered in dust and mildew. He sat in a high backed chair on a small raised dais on the far side of a small room.

"Years I have waited," the voice said. "for one of my blood to come and request my aid." His head rose slowly, as if gaining momentum and energy. He stood, and was taller – much taller – than he looked while he was sitting. His body was straight and his stance wide in his thick woolen robe.

"It is no shame for you to be here, although you seem to be young," the figure went on. "When I was alive I told only my kin of the Chthonic, and they must have told you." The voice was strong now, clear and powerful. "I am a weapon, a killer, and I will be unleashed upon the land, and will kill until I die. But not before a great many more have died before me. That is our role. Your role, now, is...a servant? A page? Ah, a squire, I see." The hood nodded. "A squire to the Prince. Yes. I am his grandfather, and told him of us, and what we are, and what we are to be used for, as that knowledge was his right, but not necessarily his right to use."

"He may not be pleased with the results." The figure paused, as if considering. "I am not cruel, child, but we all have our purpose. Do not hate me."

"I...don't hate you, sir," Johanssen said, his voice shaky as an autumn leaf.

"Good. That is well. Because now you are one of us. Until the next one comes calling, you will take my place here." The figure strode into the water, past the squire and his wavering torch, and into the inky black beyond the door.

Johanssen awoke suddenly, eyes wide open, as if from a dream. He stared out a large window into a beautiful summer countryside. Flowers bloomed, trees were laden with fruit, and animals scampered across the idyllic scene, like something from a song. His hands had been clutching the windowsill as if to hold himself up, and he released it, flexing his hands.

He stepped back from the window and looked around. It was utter darkness all around him, and the light from the window did not make the journey into his realm. He was standing on a small dais off to the side of a small room that was filled with water. A high-backed chair was just behind him. He wore a thick robe, covered in dust and cobwebs.

He looked up, and above the window, painted in beautiful black letters was one word:

Chthonic.

Then he remembered, and went back to the window, placed his hands on the windowsill, and continued to stare.