“Burn, and feed me with your death,” Kat cried out defiantly as she raised the deadly flames around her hungrily. The surrounding forest did not retreat but fed itself to the roiling black fires in its futile assault. Kat’s powers only grew as a result. Yet as those flames feasted, the forest she called home was being consumed by the growing blackness of her power, drained of any recognizable life. What good was saving this creature if she destroyed everything else in turn?
Kat didn’t want to. She knew it could taint any hope she would have of saving this great being, but she had no other choice. She could not use her magic for defense alone any longer. If she had any hope of succeeding, she had to strike. She had to force the giant’s hand. “Submit or die, giant,” she called coolly. Then she lashed out with a wave of black flames, directed at the heart of the spirit’s roiling presence.
There was not enough power to maim in that first initial strike. She didn’t wish to harm him, but she needed to make clear the damage this force could do if she, at last, decided to unleash and vanquish her foe. The spout of black flames struck from the tips of her fingers. The energy of the spirit wavered and dimmed just a bit, as part of it was devoured by hungering death. But the ancient one shrugged off the attack almost disdainfully.
Then Goliath laughed. It wasn’t the bass chuckle of a great giant’s voice or the hollow, empty cackle of a specter from beyond the grave. This was the rustle of a million leaves and limbs, the creak of a forest worth of bark and branch all resounding at once with delighted mirth at her words. “Foolish witch,” the forest spoke as one. “You offer two choices, yet the same outcome, nevertheless. Are you so young and naïve that you don’t realize this? Surely such power is paired with wisdom.”
“I do not wish to destroy you, Goliath. I have loved you since I was a child. But I cannot let you go free to destroy as you will.”
“Hahaha. Could I even do as much damage as you, little witch?”
He was right, of course. The area around the battle was now a desolate wasteland. Stained with death and decay, the enchanted forest had been stripped of almost all life and color by her budding new power. But despite the feelings this awoke in her, still, Kat held firm. The damage was done in defense of life, not in an assault upon life, as the humans seemed to revel in. And still, Goliath was a life she was determined to salvage from this travesty.
“Submit your soul to the gourd, great one. The priests can form you a new body. Together we can regrow this glade like your own thorny grove.” She was desperate to soothe his spirit, turn the urge for destruction into creation. Nourishing nature was at this beast’s heart; Kat always knew that deep down. If she could only tap into that part of him, perhaps she could turn him back from the brink.
“Your priests and their idealistic fantasy is over, child,” the forest countered at the giant’s command. “The humans have come, not by accident, but on assault against all that is magical, which remains in these lands. Even you will feel the blades, if not the burn, of their witch purifying fires. Either I lash out now and take those I can from this world in my final moments, or I die in your village as a puny sprout when the humans come to finish the job. Either way, little Kat, we are all going to die. Very very soon.”
For a moment, Kat couldn’t find her voice. There was a certainty to the giant’s proclamation, and it dimmed the rage of her black flames just a bit.
“You command true power, witch. Why not join my rampage? There is no stopping the plague of these civilized men. But perhaps we can make them suffer for their successes while we still live.” The forest seemed certain she would accept. But perhaps Goliath didn’t understand the cunning of the young woman before him. Magical creatures had a rumored weakness for young maidens. And dark though Kat may be, she was more than beautiful enough to classify as such an enchantment. Perhaps this lulled him into complacency. Either way, Kat was not so easily swayed.
“Two?” she scoffed. “Against how many? Hundreds? Thousands? With steel and fire? How much damage could we truly do, even as powerful as you are, great one?”
“You underestimate your own power, little witch. Those priests have subdued the wildness of your soul. Sad that you will die, never knowing the true freedom such powers could buy you or the revenge you could inflict upon these humans if you would stop hiding in shadows like your people have done for ages. I will not allow my wildness to be subdued like you, restrained and naive. I will howl my rage into the night. I will fight with the forces at my command. I will not let the age of magic go so quietly.”
“What if you didn’t have to fight alone?” Kat suggested, seeing a possible opening. The beast’s spirit was stirring more aggressively around the denuded clearing as she spoke, like a caged animal seeking escape. She didn’t have long before she would no longer be able to hold his attention and thus his vengeance at bay.
“So, you would join your hand with mine?” The oppressive force of the being was suddenly smotheringly close to her, just at the edge of the black flames swirling around her.
“Perhaps. But I will not be as foolish as you, ancient one. I will not charge forth blindly out of anger. I will seek counsel and aid. If you will only submit to the Soul Gourd for a time, I will promise to regrow your form with my own magics long before the humans arrive, not the slow growth of the priests’ rituals.”
“And why should I do this? What does a new body buy me? If you could even fulfill this promise, to begin with.”
“You know I can. You said yourself, my powers are great. I can form a body greater than the one you left. But even then, we wouldn’t be enough to stand against the humans. We need my people. I will speak on your behalf. I will tell them of the treachery of your death. I will plead for them to fight.”
“And you will fail, little witch. Your people gave up the fight long ago. All they know is the slow creep of retreat. Only now, there is nowhere left for them to run. They will die, as will we all. The only question now is, will we do it fighting?”
“I will weave your form of the deadliest, most poisonous plants, and imbue your aura so that no human may approach your form and live,” Kat promised temptingly. “I will make your physical body as much a force for death as your spirit wills to be now. Is that not payment enough for such a simple ask? Give me a chance.”
The spirit seemed to stir with a new eagerness, but something held him back still. “Your people once promised my kind that a new body would allow us to live on in peace, free from human incursion. That is proven more than a lie this day. Why should your word hold any greater trust?”
“I bind this pact to my own soul, ancient Goliath. And should my people refuse, I swear that I will aid you still, though I think that such an act is folly. If I fail to keep my promise, my life shall be forfeit, the essence of my soul bound to regrow your form as promised from the seed of my Soul Gourd. Is such an oath acceptable?” She gave away no feelings in her words, though she knew she had sealed her death, no matter what happened after. It didn’t matter. Death was a part of life. And if it was her time, she would accept it as the natural course of things. But until that moment, she would fight.
“I admire you, little Kat. A great world we could have made together were we to have joined forces long before humans grew so strong. But we will make them pay, if only a little, for the loss of that world, I think. I will accept your offer, though I think it is as foolish of a plan as you think mine. Take me to your people. But understand, I already know how this ends.”
“Done. The pact is made,” Kat called as she sealed the words of her promise within the essence of her soul like a brand. She felt it burn itself into her very being, deep beneath the sense of anything physical. The bargain was struck, and she knew the ultimate price would be paid in the end, either way.
Kat held up the pathetic Soul Gourd, so seemingly insignificant now for such a monumental task. As she faced off against the giant’s spirit, it slowly dawned on her that, even with her powers, her Soul Gourd would not be enough
to contain him. She needed to strengthen it somehow, but she would have to do it her own way, and not through rune and ritual like her mentors.
The gourd was a waxy orange, with only two dimples in the front, where just the hint of a face was appearing. There would be two seeds inside, born from the souls contained within. Normally she would wait until a time of rebirth to plant and allow them to grow into new beings. But Kat needed them now. And it was likely that once complete, the spirits would be lost in the process. But death was always feeding life, and it would simply have to do so once more.
Kat twisted the vine-like stem at the top of the orange fruit. There was a shimmer at the base as it detached magically, almost like the cap of a bottle. With a tilt and a slight shake, Kat deposited the two seeds, white as pristine snow, into her hand. They shimmered with the touch of the lives imbued within.
The land all around was dead and rotting, but Kat could grow a plant in almost anything. Yet it was imperative she manage to grow one from this dead soil beneath her. She needed to feed the desolation and death of this ravaged grove into her Soul Gourd to reinforce it against the rage of Goliath’s spirit. And she needed the sacrifice of these spirits to do it.
She dropped the seeds onto the black rancid soil. Their purity almost seemed to resist, but the wretched ground hungered to devour life, and the seeds quickly vanished within the churning compost. They would try to grow themselves, of course, once they encountered suitable conditions, forming into a body to contain their souls. But Kat had another purpose for them. Like with her flourishing ivy gown, Kat wove her black flames into the dirt to coax the seeds to life, bending and manipulating the resulting seedlings into something new and wonderful, and methodically constructed to aid the feat she had before her.
Two twisted and horrifically deformed vines poked from the ground weakly. The black flames fed them, but there was so much death around, their budding life was diminished greatly. That was the first alteration needed. They must be plants that fed on death. Death must not be a weakness for those tendrils, but a force for them to draw from and feed into her spell. They would not be independent lives. They were meant as conduits to funnel the death, magic, and spirit of Goliath forcefully into a container not nearly suitable enough for such forces. But the sacrifices must be made, even if her own life was part of the cost.
She grew the vines up and out of the ground with her magic, slowly weaving them into the replaced stem cap of her Soul Gourd. With a flare of black flames, she merged gourd to vines, and in turn, connected the vessel to the ground upon which Goliath’s physical form had recently died.
The strange umbilicus began to pulse with the black energy, feeding it like an artery into the Soul Gourd. The magic of death filled it. The orange fruit bulged and twisted as the forces raging through it corrupted its shape and texture into something savage and otherworldly. The spirit of Goliath cackled approvingly at the witch’s spell, as his new temporary home was tainted with forces more malevolent than any unleashed within the enchanted forest before.
“Now, great one. The vessel is prepared. Give your soul unto me and seal our spirits in pact for eternity,” Kat cried amidst the roar of the raging deathly black flames.
“For eternity, my precious witch,” Goliath cried as the spirit sank through the black defiled soil and fed his vast being into the meager Soul Gourd willingly. The dimples, which once appeared as vague eyes, split with a wrenching wet ripping sound as the giant’s essence reworked the mild facial resemblance of the natural gourd into a twisted demonic guise. A mouth with snarling, thorny fangs and dripping viscous spittle opened with a cry of triumph. The eyes gleamed with a flaring orange light from deep within, unlike anything Kat had ever seen within a Soul Gourd before. But then, this was so much more than anything the priests had ever created with the fruit.
When all was fed into the pulsating horror of the Soul Gourd, at last, it began to feed upon even the souls of the vine conduits, draining them of life until the connection to the dark, dank earth crumbled away like dust.
Kat couldn’t believe what she had done. This was beyond anything the priests could have managed with their careful spellcasting. Surely, when they see this, they must join in her fight, she thought. But Goliath’s presence was undeniably there in the gaze of those eyes peering from within the Soul Gourd, assuring her that she was a fool.
Chapter 3:
Matriarch’s Rise
The scent of smoke was the first to greet Kat as she neared the village. The orange glare of the natural raging flames appeared among the trees ahead shortly after. Her village was burning, but there were no sounds of outcry or resistance among the crackling of the fire’s hunger. There was no sense of a single presence either. Kat knew what she would find long before she ever broke into the clearing of her people’s home near the heart of the enchanted forest.
If it wasn’t for the strength still infusing her from her earlier spellcasting, Kat would have dropped to her knees for the second time that day. The humans had done to her people’s home, what she had done to the clearing of the giant’s body. The village was destroyed, homes collapsed and burning, everyone and everything living put to the sword or flame. The village born from the careful weaving of the magic of life had been given completely unto death, along with almost everyone who lived there.
“Katerina…” a faint gasping voice called.
The sense of life was so weak and so close to death, Kat could barely trace its source with her gift, but when she at last found the speaker, her heart dropped.
“Mother,” Kat whimpered, with a voice more reflective of a lost and frightened child. The woman upon the ground among the ash, rubble, and blood, looked almost nothing like the woman who raised her. Death had a way of altering a face, or perhaps it was simply the absence of life that changed it. Either way, it was surreal to see the broken and battered body there, so near death, her hand clutching futilely to the stiffened blue fingers of Kat’s father, long since passed. From the looks of it, he had died shielding the woman he loved.
“Run, child. Our world is done. The forest is to be put to the flames,” her mother choked out the words fitfully and appeared to have given almost everything she had to do so. Life was quickly fading from her eyes.
“I can’t,” Kat replied regretfully, as she was forced to refuse her mother’s dying wish.
“Kat…erina. Pl… Please,” her final breaths were quickly growing ragged and strained.
“I made a promise, mother. But even if I had not, I cannot let this assault go unavenged.” The life was gone from her mother’s eyes before she even finished. The tears streamed down Kat’s face as the black flames rose up around her, almost unbidden, the death of her village feeding her fury.
She gazed into the savage glare of her Soul Gourd, the light of Goliath’s spirit peering back. She could not give him what she promised. She could not gain her people’s aid in this fight now, which meant she and the giant were bound to march to their death alone against the humans. Her only solace was that she had gained a great deal of mastery over the powers of death through her trials this day. Although death was certain, Kat would make a fine and deadly showing of herself in the end.
“I promised you I would gain my people’s aid in this fight, ancient one. I failed. I will keep my bargain. I will give you a new body and join you in this fight.”
Perhaps it was imagined, but for just a moment, she felt as if the forest laughed at her with Goliath’s mocking tone. How dare he, she thought. But as her anger built, she had a sudden realization. Whether the giant laughed or not, she was deserving of mockery. Here she was giving up when as horrible as it may seem, she was now given the ability to deliver exactly what she promised.
She was Katerina. She commanded the forces of death. So, while it was true, she could no longer bargain or negotiate with her people to gain their aid, she didn’t need their permission any longer. Perhaps it was a wicked sin to consider. But Katerina no longer cared. The forces o
f darkness and a need for vengeance filled her soul and banished any regret she might have for the sacrilege.
Katerina raised the forces of death and fed them into the bodies of her parents. And like the earlier feat with the ivy, she lifted them from the ground with her powers, manipulating them like puppets, to do her bidding.
“Come, mother. Come, father. I have work to do in my gardens. The time for harvest nears. A Harvest of Souls.”
One by one, the broken bodies of her people rose from the ground, like lurching jolting marionettes, to follow the dark ivy adorned maiden into the forest. Death walked with Katerina, in her black flames and the horde of stumbling dead. The ground withered beneath her passage, giving up every ounce of life within to the growing haze and roiling black flames around her. The forests burned from human treachery in almost every direction, but the natural orange flames could not breach her aura of death.
She had only one destination in mind, one place her powers held the greatest sway. Behind her family’s cottage, just outside of the village, and almost in the exact heart of the enchanted forest, lay her garden of Soul Gourds. It was there where she would craft her vengeance.
The priests were all gone, along with their secrets of enchanting the magic fruits. Their runic lore and scrolls were burning even now. The knowledge was lost. But Katerina didn’t need their bumbling novice ways, for their magic was incomplete. They needed the rituals and special additions because they didn’t work with both life and death together, as nature intended. Katerina knew that now more than ever. She didn’t need their teachings anymore. She was beyond what they could give. She had learned the true secret.
Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins Page 13