by Elle Cross
The pixie light moved forward, and she saw that she would climb even higher. It looked to be a roof access. War followed behind her, Mischief and Strife ranging out like they preferred.
They gained access to the roof. Over the sides, she saw the gathering folk coming in from beyond Dawn.
She wouldn't be able to make those streets now for an escape if she tried.
The pixie turned back into her other form. The men were startled by her appearance but did nothing as Immortelle tried to decipher the pixie’s gestures, which indicated that they were to go down.
Immortelle looked down. The pixie was crazy. She wouldn’t be able to survive that fall. She’d have a broken ankle at best; she didn't care how she would roll to absorb the impact.
"Sorry kiddo, but I can't jump down. Besides, the other mercenaries would find us quickly on the ground. We have no knowledge of the spy networks here." Immortelle had to assume it was extensive.
Then the pixie made another motion. Not down. Across. As in across the chasm and onto the following rooftop.
Pixie was definitely crazy.
"And what? You're going to carry me over?" she laughed at the hopeful girl whose large eyes swallowed her face.
War must have figured out what the plan would be, because the one-sided conversation was interrupted. "No, but I will. That building?" He pointed as he addressed the pixie.
The pixie beamed and nodded, and then became a shooting light once more.
"Hey! Come back!"
Immortelle's cry got cut off as a rising tide of noise came from inside of the tavern. Hells, the mercenaries must be on the move. So much for no harm. She couldn't imagine the type of horrible death that would have awaited her had she stayed in the main dining room.
Mischief and Strife shed their suits and accepted the full mantle of their power. Their faces grew sharper, more angular. Their bodies, usually lean and muscular, grew in mass as their armor shone a glittering black in the muted light of Dawn. The very air warped around them, as if barely able to consist, stretching the veil of the universe with their presence. "Take her, we'll catch up."
Their words dripped with blood and glee.
"What?" That was the only word Immortelle could squeeze out when with a rush of War's wings, they hurtled over the edge of the roof.
Immortelle was coiled in rage, but she didn't want to give voice to it, especially since she was still airborne.
Damn War.
And damn men.
This was exactly what she didn't miss during their time together.
As soon as they touched down on the far side of the building, Immortelle would let loose a diatribe. She imagined future generations recalling it as they sung about her life in epic saga verses.
Instead of indulging her fantasy, though, the damn pixie took the angry winds from Immortelle’s sails.
The pixie cocked her head to the side. "You are angry. I apologize."
Surprise and curiosity reigned now, anger forgotten. "You guys can talk?"
The pixie looked at her, confused. "There are more than males among my kind?"
It took a moment for Immortelle to realize that the pixie had taken her “guys” comment literally.
Immortelle tried again. "I meant I didn't realize pixies--in general-- talked. The ones I knew didn't. Or maybe I just didn't understand them."
Understanding dawned in the pixie’s face. "Thank you for trying to be accurate, Immortelle. The pixies that you met are the ones that told me of you. When I realized that you were here in the Goblin Market, I thought it would be our chance to talk. I am Ara Larusha. That is a royal house among the Pixies. I'll explain more when there is more time to explain."
"You mean when there aren’t hordes of creatures coming to kill me and other death threats?" Immortelle asked. Her deadpan humor was lost on Ara Larusha’s more literal mind.
"No, of course not among death threats. That was just a little bit of an odd timing."
"Sorry you were inconvenienced?" Immortelle didn't know what to say to that. "What can I help you with, especially since your intervention helped me out of that pickle?"
The little pixie tilted her head as if processing what a pickle was and filtering the slang into something she would know. "Well for now, you could help me by surviving. There is something that I would ask of you. I fear to do so, because you are also in a bit of a pickle, as you say. Come, let's head to sanctuary. A real one. There, I can take you to an Oracle. Or at least where you will be able to call upon one. They will have to decide to show themselves to you, I am afraid. If I am able to do this, would this earn an audience with you?"
A slither of anxiety rippled down Immortelle’s spine. She didn’t want to accept payment in advance of a favor. Even though she could always refuse, she would still feel obligated to follow through on a future favor. Immortelle didn’t like having those types of things held over her head.
Immortelle looked the pixie over and decided to take a chance. Besides, Ara Larusha already got them out of the tavern, so that already earned trust anyway. "Of course. Lead the way."
Ara Larusha smiled and the brilliance overpowered her face. She flitted back into a golden orb and shot out in front of the group to guide them toward Sanctuary. They both jogged to follow.
War curved his wings of power around the both of them in a sort of shield. "I hope you know what you just did. Cute or no you have promised something with the Fae."
Immortelle swallowed, knowing he spoke the exact hesitation that she had. Making hasty promises was never a great solution to anything. "Pixies are barely Fae."
"They are Fae enough to count for Fae, Lucy. Fae is Fae."
Immortelle stumbled a little hearing the name Lucy fall from his lips. She never thought he would ever call her that voluntarily. She mentioned it.
"What? You only snarl every time we call you Immortelle. We're a little slow on the uptake, but I can catch on eventually."
"Thank you," she said. Immortelle asked, purposely being obtuse, “What about the demi-Fae?”
War didn’t take the bait and answered seriously. “Still Fae. That part of them seems to obliterate all the humanity from them.”
They moved on. They didn't know where this pixie would lead them, but Immortelle was intrigued enough to continue following. Especially since she had mentioned she was of a royal house. That meant there were more royal houses.
Immortelle wondered if that meant that any royal pixie could shift into larger versions of themselves? Or only select pixies? And were they able to shift to anything or just larger versions of themselves?
So many questions that Immortelle wanted to indulge in, but she didn’t have that luxury at the moment.
Ara Larusha winked into her other form, and waved them on with her arm. "Come, this way!"
War and Immortelle followed down a ladder down the side of a building. It was interesting that this building and others surrounding it looked like familiar alleyways and streets in New York. A corner of every realm seemed to find a pocket inside of the Goblin Market.
As soon as they reached the ground, Ara Larusha flitted toward the end of the alley. She narrowly missed being another thing’s meal, zipping around a set of snapping jaws.
War and Immortelle froze.
Out of the fog, there was a glowing set of eyes. They were golden, and if she hadn’t seen the thing’s slavering jaws, Immortelle could have believed the gold lights were more pixies.
Harmless and small, that was a good strategy for a predator to employ.
The rest of what the eyes were attached to was obscured, but judging by the teeth, the monster would be as big as a grizzly bear. Immortelle tried to recall its skin color or texture. Whether it had fur or scales or what, but it was as if she couldn’t hold it in her mind. Even the eyes would have faded, if they hadn’t been there, blinking at her.
It was like the fog itself, ephemeral and formless. At least, that was what it wanted them to think.
The set o
f eyes blinked, a golden flicker of light that seemed to bob into the alley. As it did, another set of eyes appeared above the gold pair. And then another pair opened below. Red. Golden. Green. Twin rows of jeweled eyes gleamed in the distance.
In the absurdity of the situation, they reminded Immortelle of traffic lights.
After a pause, it continued to advance on them in ponderous steps. The more of it that escaped the covering of the fog, the more it ended up confused in her mind as she tried to comprehend what was before her.
The monster was dark. It didn’t quite have a color, and if she had to choose one, she would have probably said it was black or gray. That would have been wrong though. It had no color, as if it were the opposite idea of light. A sort of black hole.
Its peculiar motions were almost insectile. Alien. Its joints were wrong. Its legs came off the side of its torso and were reminiscent of alligator’s legs that were longer, leaner, and encased in fur.
It was a surreal combination of features that unsettled her mind and almost made her queasy.
It advanced toward them as silently as the falling night. It had a curious intelligence to it as if it calculated the distance that separated them, and decided that they were prey.
What the hell was it?
As if in answer, it swung a pair of eyes at her. They were the green ones. She hadn't expected to meet its gaze. But, as she was staring at it so intently, trying to figure out what it was, she fell into its soulscape.
* * *
There was something to be said about the Sight. Immortals didn't have this problem, shielded as they were. As a mortal, though, who had to work to activate Sight, she would happen to fall into a person's soulscape easily.
If only she could have gotten another gift. Maybe flight. That would have come in handy.
Immortelle looked around for a place of direction or civilization or anything in this monster’s mind that felt like Earth.
This soulscape—if it could even be called that—was frightening.
She had landed on ground that shifted beneath her feet. It felt like sand, if sand had a bouncy texture to it. Green flames scorched across the sky in this upside down world where it seemed to be the reverse of what she knew as “normal.”
Horrific-looking trees that looked like they were made of rusted metal surged from the ground as if they would rake the sky. Jade green mountains peaked in the distance over an orange field, and beyond that in the horizon were the auras of three suns, none of which gave off any heat.
The more she stayed here the more barren the landscape became. Sand dunes shifted beneath her feet. A cliff face emerged from the craggy landscape, on top of which were more of the black trees, thorns as big as arms on top of them.
One of the cliffs emerged from beneath her feet, too, zooming her high into the air. The orange sandy desert was a speck in the distance.
The surreal quality made her feel like this was a dream. Or rather a nightmare. A never-ending one, at least for this creature.
Problem was, this creature seemed to like it.
She knew that there was no reason for her to know it. But being in its soulscape was like feeling everything the creature felt. It was like enduring an unwelcome touch.
This shared knowing would stain her soul, she already knew. The only reason she lingered was to get something out of this trip. Something that she could look back on in triumph when she would no doubt be plagued by disturbing memories of her time here.
The sand dune that buckled underneath her split in two until a chasm formed. The orange ocean flowed into this newly formed space. The cliff facing her no longer looked sandy but became denser. Forbidding. Soon, the cliff became like granite, unyielding and massive.
It would have been impossible for anything to live upon a surface of straight rock. After all, where would trees find their roots? And yet, upon the barren soil, more of those trees, cruel and twisted, bloomed.
Immortelle thought that she saw some movement on the trees. Maybe they had leaves or flowering branches on them that the others didn’t. As she focused her eyes, she realized that her assumption was wrong. Mounted upon the jagged branches as if he were an insect on display, was a black form with two arms, two legs and a head.
She hesitated to name it man because that word would imply that what she looked at was human. And she hoped with everything that was inside of her that it wasn’t human.
If there were any merciful gods, whoever it was that was pinioned on those branches was dead.
Each appendage was speared through by one of those thorns. Rivulets of blood, black and oozing, worked from him. It was a disaster of flesh, a never-ending crucifixion.
She was transfixed by the horror of it. And that was when she saw the impaled wreck of a creature move. It stretched its too-skinny neck and opened its mouth to mewl and whimper.
Immortelle’s breath caught in her throat. It’s alive?
Something told her though that the sound was more human than animal, which made it even worse.
No human would have to be made to sound like that.
Immortelle looked around, wondering how she might save it when the mewling turned into a laugh. It was like the grinding whine of locked metal gears and it echoed in a sizzling cry around her.
Even sound was a weapon here.
Immortelle plugged her ears as best she could, screwing her eyes shut against the onslaught, but like everything in this soulscape, the sound seemed to burrow under her skin. "What do you want?" she cried out.
Her voice managed to remain the same, though the other sounds in this environment were warped. The ocean waves were like shifting shards of glass. The birds cawed in discordant tones like a tangle of wires.
"What do I want?” asked a seething voice that belonged to a damned and broken creature. “I want nothing. Can't you see? This is power! I want for nothing! It is you who wants!"
He—because the trapped creature started to sound more and more masculine—sounded like he had traded one kind of torture with another, though he didn’t seem to think that. His metallic laughter shrieked higher and higher until it was like knives raking over metal.
It made her teeth ache to hear it.
She needed out. No amount of information would be worth staying here any longer.
And she realized that her feet were being trapped in this cliff. It had started to trickle back into a sandy structure and she couldn't take any more.
Immortelle thought of her own body, of being in her own mind. She shut her eyes but every time she opened them again, the same nightmare was before her.
Usually, leaving a soulscape was as easy for her as falling into one. It was a matter of will. Will.
What if your will became twisted?
Immortelle saw the thing that looked like a man pinned and writhing. A sick feeling radiated from her spine and filled her belly. Had he been like her? Had he once been a separate person, free, but had gotten trapped and warped?
Was that her fate as well?
Her heart race as she reached out to anywhere, grasped any escape she could think of even as she struggled to keep from getting stuck in the ground.
Help! Anyone!
Immortelle searched for help with all that was within her.
As if something answered, there was a tug of something in her heart, and she thought she heard a whisper. The surrounding cacophony made it hard to hear, but she fought to do so.
The whisper echoed within her now, resonating through her bones. It spoke one word. Her name.
She followed the sound of the voice, allowed it to fill her with hope, and she felt the sand give way from her feet.
* * *
Immortelle opened her eyes and it was in time to see the creature barreling toward her. War had been yelling her name, begging her to wake up. To move. To anything.
In one last desperate bid, he pushed her aside, and she crumpled to a pile on the ground, narrowly missing the creature swipe its claws over her head.
Immortelle took the sword from her waist, and arced outward, metal slicing into hair and sinew.
The answering roar from the creature quickened the blood in her veins. She surged to her feet.
War flipped in the air, a rush of power forming around him as winged veils.
The creature stretched out its neck to snap its powerful jaws at him. It missed War’s body, but snagged at the corona that wrapped around him. With a whip of its head, it hurled War against the side of the building.
War landed with a sickening crunch.
Immortelle stepped back from its swipe zone. If it could grab veils of power as if they were something physical, what else could it do?
Its paws were bigger than her head, claws nearly the size of her arm. She couldn't survive a hit from that.
Immortelle kept within its blind spot, and she knew that she was annoying it. She got another lucky hit down, slashing next to its hind quarters.
It reared back before she could inflict much damage.
Damn, it moved quickly.
It swiveled in its place, whipping around with front paw and jaws extended out. She jumped up and caught the ladder above, and then dropped down heavily behind him. Her knees screamed at her, and she rolled to absorb the impact of the landing.
Immortelle couldn’t move fast enough as she crawled across the ground trying to get her legs to move.
She met a pair of feet, and she looked up to see the well-dressed Fear. He wasn't looking at her, he was looking at the monster.
"Well, aren't you far from home?" Fear didn’t have a weapon, but he clenching and unclenching his fingers into fists as he stared the monster down.
The red set of eyes flickered to life in the middle of the animal's head. "I could say the same to you, Fear."
The way the creature said the name made it seem like it found Fear laughable. Immortelle blinked in confusion at the thing that suddenly was talking.