Dark The Sun And Moon
an excerpt

Victoria's heart began to beat faster, and that was when she noticed that the drumbeat's pace had increased. Her heart faltered for a second, and the drumbeat did the same, and she turned to look at Tonin.

'It's me,' she said to him. 'Oh god, it's me!'

'What's you?'

'The noise! That's the beating of my heart. Exactly.'

'Coincidence is more likely,' Tonin replied.

Victoria fell to her knees, retched, and then finally vomited on the floor. She closed her eyes, and felt her heartbeat calm. The drums calmed, and then there was the sound of laughter, and the smell of a thousand rotting corpses.
She looked up; Tonin was glancing left, and then right, and he'd put his hand on the sword that was belted to his waits.

'I have a really bad feeling about this,' Victoria whispered. Tonin helped her to stand, and they began to move further into the room, closer to the strange, raised platform. Closer to the constant laughter, closer to the drumbeat.

The lights seemed to grow brighter, and then finally they were standing at the steps that lead up the platform.

The beat was steady, like Victoria's heartbeat. She had her knife out of her belt and in her hand, and Tonin had the sword in his hand, unable to use the axe and hold Job over his shoulders.

They climbed and they climbed, and they seemed to climb forever; from a distance away, it didn't seem like many steps, but by the time Victoria's legs began to tire, it didn't even look as though they were half-way there.
And then, finally, they stood on the platform, and they looked into a pool of pitch black darkness. Around the pool knelt a hundred dead men, their skeletal remains propped up by some magical force.

Victoria thought she saw movement among them, and her heart jumped again. The drumbeat jumped with her. The laugher grew louder, and she moved closer to the pool, staring into the liquid blackness.

A voice echoed around the room: 'Welcome,' and it was the same voice as the laughter. 'Welcome to my humble home.'