The Unclean Six

Prologue. They had been seated in an outer waiting room for a long, long time. None of them had uttered a solitary word to one another. There was no need to. The walls were carved out of rock, which must have been a Herculean task given the immense size of the space. Also included in the work was a basic seating plinth that ran around the perimeter. Moisture ran and dripped down all four of the hand made curved, blackened, walls, it was as though they were sweating. Due to the two torches that were supported on opposite walls and the orange, yellow flames that crackled from them, the air was heavy and parched, making it very difficult to breathe. None of the six paid any heed. Each of them seemed to be lost in meditation or private reflection. During the course of the last days, each one of them had been introduced to the room and left to wait. The first arrival had been nearly two days ago and the most recent, fourteen hours ago. When each had entered, he had stood in the centre of the cave like room and looked around at his sparse surroundings. Except for the torches, the walls were bare and oppressive. There were two heavy wooden doors with giant, rusted metal hinges and substantial iron handles and locks, although they had not had a key turn in them for many hundreds of years. The wood had aged and darkened, giving an unforgiving, solid, appearance that complimented the walls, perfectly. The once jagged, rough edges to the floor had been smoothed away by the thousands of shuffling feet that had paced the room over thousands of years, blackening it in the process in a mixture of dust, dirt and blood. Each of the six had then sat in a carefully chosen, statuesque position and began to wait. One at a time they had come into the chamber to bide time. The only sound to be heard was the crackling of the flames. None of them spoke, none of them looked around they simply waited for they knew that once they were all together, it would not be long… Then it would begin.