The Temple of Burong

The Temple of Burong is the seventh chapter of The Travels of Dagobert Winter. The full text can be seen below.

Background

Summary of the last chapter: At the temple of Burong, the mausoleum of the Chimney Man: an hour before, Dagobert had accidentally broken one of the Chimney Man’s seals; he and company then fled the temple; Dagobert long deliberated what they should do, and finally, he decided to try and restore the seal.

Text

At length, Dagobert resolved to re-seal the Chimney Man. With Martin in tow, he returned to the main hall of the temple. The entire hall was bathed in an eerie red glow, and the once stately fir atop the Chimney Man’s coffin had cast off its needles and withered, its branches seeping with black ichor. Thirteen of the twenty-four sealing tablets had shattered and fallen to the ground; chains lay about everywhere, and a fourteenth seal had begun to crack.

‘Watch over that coffin’ whispered Dagobert. Martin nodded silently and remained at the entrance.

Cursing his foolishness under his breath, a terrified Dagobert slowly approached one of the broken seals. Reaching into his coat, he retrieved a set of unfired clay tablets and a stylus he had fashioned from reeds growing on the banks of the Gambia River. He placed a tablet among the remains of the seal and began etching a set of ancient Sumerian warding glyphs into the clay.

Before he could finish drawing the first symbol, the entire temple shook as if struck by an earthquake. It was as though someone or something was striking at its walls from the outside, trying to get in. The temple’s seals, however, not only sealed the Man in Red, but also the temple itself. And the remaining seals held strong.

At the same time, a ghastly ululation—ever so faintly reminiscent of a laugh—erupted from the grey coffin. Dagobert covered his ears and screamed in an attempt to drown out the terrible sound; he felt as though his head had been split asunder by an axe. The light permeating the room grew ever more intense as the ‘laugh’ reached its climax—before ceasing entirely.

A foreboding silence blanketed the hall; one second; two seconds; three seconds. Dagobert felt as though he had sunken to the bottom of the ocean. His movements became sluggish as though he had stuck his hands into a vat of liquid tar. Four seconds; five seconds. Dagoberts drawings became frantic and erratic; at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to leave this hall and never return. And yet, he persisted. Slowly but surely, the seal he was working on had started to reform itself; the cracks in the clay grew smaller, and chains rose up from the ground and attached themselves to the tablet.

Sudden, a glowing illusory figure appeared in mid-air above the coffin. It was a tall, burly man with a long beard that seemed to have a life of its own as it fluttered in the windless hall. A heavy coat was draped around its shoulders; its inside was as black as the night sky, and its outside a deep scarlet. The figure’s hands, feet, and legs were covered by white cloth; it, too, appeared red under the light. And where the figure’s face should have been, there was only an empty void.

Dagobert was too engrossed in his writing to even notice the figure, but Martin did. A singular thought lit up in his mind ‘The Man in Red? But how? There are still eleven seals left!’

Indeed, this was not the Man in Red; or rather, it was not His actual body, for that remained sealed within the coffin. Instead, He had used His authority of gifting and ‘gifted’ Himself a projection of His body. Ever since the breaking of the first seal, His influence had begun seeping out into the hall, and though He was still unable escape His confinement, He could now exert His authority within the temple.

Martin wasted no time and attempted to seal the projection. He traced out eight points around Him in his mind and imagined another stone coffin, whose ‘lid’ was like a door. Martin attempted to ‘close’ that door, but He resisted. Sensing his actions, He took hold of the ‘distance’ between them and ‘gifted’ it to the space behind Himself. Immediately, He appeared before Martin, but the latter had anticipated His interference and jumped to the side as He clove down with His right arm and ‘gifted’ a vacuum to the space where Martin had stood. A thunderclap echoed throughout the hall as the air rushed to fill the sudden emptyness left behind by His arm.

When the Man in Red turned to attack Martin again, he bent down, and touching a large flagstone at his feet, he ‘opened’ it. The flagstone crumbled and revealed a chasm. Moments later, when He appeared before him, He was hovering above the chasm; Martin then ‘closed’ the chasm around Him, and He—along with the chasm—disappeared.

Not letting up for even a moment, Martin ran to the other end of the hall as he shouted at Dagobert ‘Hurry, I can’t hold Him off for much longer’.

Dagobert’s frantic scratching intensified and he managed to fully restore a seal; as he was getting up to prepare working on the second seal, he froze. His mind was was suddenly filled with thoughts of home, of his wife and his children.

A ‘laugh’ echoed across the hall as the Chimney Man’s figure reappeared before him. He had ‘gifted’ him thoughts of what he treasured most, rendering him unable to think of anything else. Martin attempted to ‘close’ off Dagobert’s thoughts, but in so doing, he was unable to stop Him as He once again raised His arm and prepared to strike down Dagobert.

Sudden, a green light lit up in the air above them. The light descended upon Him like a lightning bolt, obliterating His projection. No longer stunned, Dagobert looked up and saw a tall man hovering in mid-air before him. The man had curly grey hair, a ruddy nose, and green eyes; his countenance was firm, yet gentle. He wore a green coat and black trousers with shimmering silver trims. His shoes were capped with ebony, and on his head was a black bowler hat. In his right hand, he held a thin walking stick made of blackthorn, covered in thorns and soot, with a sharp point on one end and a large heavy knob on the other. His cuffs, hat, and coat were adorned with silver quatrefoils. He was a leprechaun, and his name was Ironheart McSaggins.

The Friendly Council had sensed His awakening and had sent an emissary to aid in preventing His escape. While the seals on the temple prevented most them from approaching, the leprechaun had managed to squeeze through.

Ironheart looked at the restored seal beside Dagobert. ‘Repair the seals’, he said ‘your friend and I shall hold off the Chimney Man; we must prevent His escape at all costs’. Dagobert nodded and ran towards the next seal. He had many questions, but this was not the time for them.

Another ‘laugh’ emanated from the coffin as His figure apeared once more.

‘Is there no end to this?’ yelled Martin.

‘Not until all the seals are restored’ replied the leprechaun.

Ironheart raised his walking stick, a traditional Irish shillelagh, and pointed it at Him; once again, a blinding green light illuminated the room. Before it could strike Him down, He extended His left arm and closed His fist. Suddenly, it was Martin who stood atop the coffin, and the Man in Red reappeared at the far end of the hall. He had ‘gifted’ Martin His position and thus exchanged places with him.

As Ironheart barely managed to redirect his attack away from Martin, He wasted no time and, touching the seal before Him, He ‘gifted’ it a lack of structural integrity. The seal shattered as the chains holding it up tumbled down around Him.

Ironheart gritted his teeth and charged at the Man in Red. Presently, He reached into the folds of His coat and produced His ‘gift bag’, reaching into which, He retrieved His sword. Its blade was thin and long, and its hilt ended in a hook. Both were a single white piece, carved from the bone of a creature that went extinct before the fall of Mpumalanga. Around its entirety, a series of red satin bands were wound, which gave rise to a series of alternating red and white diagonal stripes.

Having been teleported around and repeatedly blinded by flashes of green light, Martin only now regained his senses. He turned towards the Man in Red at the other end of the room and extended both of his arms towards Him. Looking at His coat, he then grabbed at the air in front of him, and pulled, closing His coat and trapping His arms inside it. The leprechaun wasted no time: The shillelagh cracked like a whip as it soared through the air and tore right through His projection, which He promptly resummoned above the coffin.

The three of them continued to go back and forth as Dagobert repaired the seals; ever so often He would manage to break one of them, but no faster than they were being restored. For a moment, it almost seemed like they had the upper hand.

Sudden, a dull thud reverberated throughout the hall.

Ironheart froze and looked at the place where Dagobert had been mending the seventh seal: a series of clay tablets were strewn about the seal; a broken reed stylus lay on the ground beside it, and amidst all of it was Dagobert. He had collapsed on the floor and stopped moving.

The Chimney Man ‘laughed’, and in an instant, Ironheart realised his mistake: Not once had he found it odd that ever since taking out His sword from His bag, He had refrained from making any more ‘gifts’. Of course, both him and Martin had rationalised that the mending of the seals, as well as the maintaining of His projection and His sword were taxing Him to the point where He was unable to muster any more of His powers. In this, however, they were mistaken, for the very moment that He retrieved His sword, He had also ‘gifted’ Dagobert a terrible curse. The ensuing battle was merely a ploy to distract His opponents from noticing Dagobert’s condition.

With that, the die was cast. With no one left to mend the seals, He ceased ‘gifting’ the curse and dismissed His sword. He then pointed at a seal in front of Him and ‘gifted’ half of it to the room to the left of the hall, and the other half to the one on the right. Then, as Ironheart’s shillelagh came down on Him once more, He simply stepped to the side and the leprechaun’s attack struck the seal beside him, cracking it as well.

Martin attempted to repair a seal in Dagobert’s stead by ‘closing’ the gaps in between its parts, but this was wholly ineffective: the proper ritual was required to restore a seal, and neither him nor the leprechaun knew it.

While Martin was distracted, He crossed the distance between Him and the next seal; Ironheart, who had anticipated His direction threw his shillelagh at the Man in Read, puncturing His left thigh—except that it actually hit Martin’s left thigh, for He had used the same technique as before and ‘gifted’ His position to Martin; He then destroyed another seal that Dagobert had just mended. With this, He had regained enough of His strength to summon a second projection, and while the first projection continued distracting Ironheart and Martin, the second continued breaking His seals.

Less than a minute later, all but two of the His seals had been broken. With the breaking of the twenty-second seal, His strength had increased exponentially: when Ironheart next attempted to call down his green light, He reached out with His right hand and closed it, ‘gifting’ Ironheart’s lightning to himself. Enhanced by His energy, a terrible green bolt enveloped the leprechaun; his body fell to the ground, unconscious.

The Man in Red then proceeded to break the twenty-third seal, completely ignoring Martin, who no longer had any means of impeding Him. As He approached the last seal, the violent forces that had been crashing against the temple walls suddently ceased. Presently, the roof of the temple was torn off like a sheet of paper by some unknown force. Both Martin and the Chimney Man cast their gaze to the sky. Hovering above them in mid-air was a coruscating mass of orange-brown light, swirling about itself like a living maelstrom. Super 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌 had descended.

For a moment, the Man in Red stood still. He was facing the very same entity that had greatly contributed to sealing Him nearly 7000 years prior. This was someone He had no direct means of defeating. For as long as the sun or moon shone its light upon him, there was nothing that could harm 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌.

Presently, 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌 appeared behind His main projection. He touched Him and applied a partial quantum ice-lock to the Man in Red; His second projection disappeared as the fertilty that had seeped out of the coffin was restricted to within His first projection. 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌 then waved his hand and transported himself and Him to his ziggurat in Uruk of -17i. There, an intense battle ensued as more members of the Friendly Council converged on their location.

Meanwhile, Martin, who had just administered first aid to a badly wounded Ironheart McSaggins, turned his head to check on Dagobert. To his amazement, the latter slowly stood up, the Chimney Man’s curse having seemingly dissipated entirely with His departure. Once he was back on his feet, Dagobert calmly turned his head and looked at the twenty-fourth seal. He then walked up to it in a decisive manner, extended his right arm towards it, and touched the seal.

The seal shattered into a thousand pieces.