Blackest Spells

by Phipps, C. T.

  I lunged forward upon reaching him, swiftly latching my armored hands around his mouth and throat. “Just as I’m now compelled to do the same to you.”

  I twisted my wrists before Wyland had a chance to react, snapping the young wizard’s neck like a twig. His body instantly grew limp in my grasp and I let go just as quickly, allowing the heavy corpse to fall to the floor.

  It felt odd, staring down at the dead wizard before me. I had essentially been his prisoner, locked in an eternal cell of his own design. The memories were now all clear to me. A gift from the Black Witch so that I could break us both free from his grasp.

  Still, the decision to kill Wyland was not one I made lightly. I had watched his ascension with hope. He was young like me. We could’ve grown old together. In fact, I often imagined what it would be like to live out my reign with his consult. A court wizard and king. A friendship forged through the decades.

  Alas, he did not feel the same way.

  “Did I do the right thing?” I asked to the presence I felt behind me.

  “There are no right things,” the witch’s raspy voice replied. “But you’re allowed to believe that if it helps you sleep at night.”

  I didn’t turn around. I refused to. That meant I had to accept the truth of my situation.

  However, the Black Witch wouldn’t allow me to forget it, gently placing her wrinkly, decrepit hand on my shoulder. “Now come, my groom. Our wedding awaits.”

  The Banshee

  By Jesse Teller

  24 Years Before The Escape

  I took my hat off and ran my hand across the slick, sweaty skin of my bald pate. I fought not to gag and fought not to laugh. From atop the cliff, I could see the entire farming village and what was left of it. The houses had burned to the ground. Survivors tried to clean the bodies from their town proper. They were all dead. A thousand men, if one could call them that, completely eradicated by one man—the man I was here to see.

  Laughing was poor play. My friend had suffered terribly for this victory, if he even was alive at all. But as I looked down at Herask’s ragged battalion and their rotting corpses, I remembered the things Herask had promised he would do with all his men and all his power—the horror the warlord had boasted would follow his march—and I smiled.

  A murder of crows, hundreds strong, hung fat and greedy in the air above the town. As I made my way through the bodies, every crow I passed squawked and screamed at me. Men and women, drenched in blood to their elbows and knees, hefted one body after the next to the wagons and they drove out of the city. This was hard, bitter work, with no sign of complaint or grumble. Every citizen here was grateful to be alive.

  The children did not run and play. They carried buckets of water and dippers to the workers. They beat the crows back and watched the scene in horror. All save one, a beautiful, soot-smeared blonde girl I knew as Ladonna stood in the burned out shell of a house staring at the char in wonder.

  I stopped near a water-bearing boy and smiled down at him. “Water for a thirsty traveler?” I asked. The boy looked up and smiled. He took the battered dipper out of his bucket and held it out.

  The clean water was cool and sweet. I nodded to the boy and smiled. “You’re Thrak, are you not?”

  “How do you know my name, sir?”

  “You have a brother, is that correct? And a sister?”

  “I do. A ma that loves me, and a pa I haven’t seen in a while,” the boy said. His accent was thick but refreshing. These were good people. I knew exactly where this young man’s father was, but there was no mercy in telling him.

  “Well then, I guess you’re set, aren’t you?” I said. “Sounds like a lot of people that love you, young man. Can you see me to the church?”

  “Hecatomb’s church?” the boy said.

  “Is there another one?”

  “There is one in the woods being built. The man building it says it will house wonders,” Thrak said.

  “He is not to be trusted. You stay away from that building. I do not mean that one. I am for Father Hecatomb’s place.”

  “I’ll show you,” the boy said. He turned and I followed.

  When we reached the church, we found a few low-ranking warriors of Hecatomb standing guard at the door. Not from this village, they had just been called in from Wrathe. One of them stepped forward and shook his head.

  “Church is closed, stranger. I’m sorry. We are in mourning. I cannot allow you to enter.”

  “I am expected.” One guard nodded and the other walked into the church.

  The door opened.

  The idol at the front of the room was modest and wrong. The face was too thin, the nose too large. The man who had crafted the statue obviously loved the god, but had never seen him. However, two marks he could not miss: the lack of legs and the missing eye.

  The candles burned soft and few, cloaking the room in shadows. A man in black laid atop the altar. I spoke a word in prayer and a priest met me.

  “Welcome to my chapel, Bard. We were told you could answer a few questions for us.”

  “I’m sure I can. May I see him?”

  The priest ushered me forward. I stopped at the altar, stared down at my friend, and held back tears.

  Ky’s ruptured throat was swollen like a black pumpkin, larger around than the man’s head, and his skin had split in many places. I placed a thumb on an eyelid and opened it gently. The whites of the eyes were blood red. Every vein had burst. Looking at the ruin of a mouth, I could not tell which scraps of flesh had been lips and which were gums. The teeth were gone, every one, and the mouth trickled blood slowly.

  “Tell me what happened. Tell me everything you know.”

  The priest kneaded his hands together and nodded. He drew me over to a pew, his words less than a whisper.

  “A few weeks ago, a rider came through this place. He was frantic and terrified. He asked for water and food, and we gave. He warned us of an army of monsters headed this way and begged us to run for our lives. We were able to ask very few questions before he was back on his horse, riding to warn others.

  “We went to our lord. We told him what we had heard and begged for his help. But he would not waste his resources on the word of one man who hadn’t even stayed to be questioned. He told us he had no knowledge of this army, and he sent us away. When we demanded more, he drew a whip and we ran for our lives.

  “We sent our own men in the direction of the warning. In but a few days, we had confirmation this horde was bearing down on us and we were doomed. Why they were coming for us, I couldn’t tell you. We have nothing. No treasures, save our people, and nothing to steal except a crop of corn and soy. We held meetings to discuss our future and came up with two options.

  “We could gather what arms we had and fight, or we could hide in the forest and the caves. It was our best option, but if they wanted to find us and were willing to search for a small time, we could not escape them. Then he showed up.

  “He rode a gray stallion, a magnificent beast we have never seen an equal to. He wore robes of black that flowed when he walked, and a sword with a crystal blade. His hair was black, his skin pale. He walked into our town hall and we followed him in. He pulled out a scroll and quill and wrote this letter to us.

  Your village will be destroyed. An army comes for a treasure you do not even know you have. Its master will take it and defeat the world with it.

  I am here to help. Gather your things and hide. Take your families and what food you can grab and flee. Go into the forest. Go into the caves. Hide and leave this army to me.

  “We asked him more questions, but he would not answer. He went into the woods and came back with a large branch. As we packed, he crafted a bow. Not a hunting bow like we have here in town, but a war bow—too large for any fair aim and too heavy to run with. He carved two enormous arrows, only two, and wrote another note asking for arrowheads.

  “Some in our numbers did not want to give this man control of our town. Many of our people thought him
part of the army itself, here to trick us out of a fight. But the rest of us knew. We knew the only hope we had was the man in black, and we obeyed.

  “The last we saw of him, he was standing on the peak of this building, looking west, in the direction of the army, and praying.

  “Two days went by. We had not run out of food, but the army had never come looking for us. We set out scouts, and the tales they brought back led us here to this slaughter.

  “We found the bodies as they are. No wounds except head wounds. All their heads ruptured, and their bodies contorted into forms of terrible pain. Every one of them was dead. In the very center, as if he were a drop of death that had contaminated an entire pool of people, he was laid out exactly like this. We stared down at him and wept. Many thanked him, and I prayed over him, in the name of Hecatomb, for his sacrifice. We were going to give him a hero’s funeral before little Ithyryyn cried out that he was still alive.

  “Imagine our horror. There was much talk of taking his life, ending his suffering. This is no way for a man to exist. I prayed about it, asked Hecatomb what I might do. I was told you would come, that you would tell us what to do and explain what happened. I have been waiting for you to make any sense of this for me.”

  “His name is Ky,” I answered. “He once had another name, but he set it aside. It was of another life, a life taken from him, a life he can never have back. He was at one time a Trimerian Knight. If you ran a hand along his forehead, you would find a third eye hidden in the flesh of his head, though his kind is not well liked among your people.

  “My story is from eons ago, a time when a child needed a hero and Ky came to his cry…”

  Ky hit the ground outside the tower of the Reese Wasteland with the slamming of lightning and a showering of stone. His white robes billowed out around him, tossed in a flurry by the terrible wind of the storm. The ground hissed and popped as it let out its noxious fog. Ky did not tarry to allow its work on his body. He pulled his sword from his hip and strode to the tower. Black-smeared stone, stained green and yellow from the smog at its base, it looked as if the structure had been built on infection and rot. The sharp, pale spires that rose from its peak were carved from the body of a fallen god. The building, an epicenter of hate, stood a stain on every land save this one. It was the hub of a diabolical coven tolerated nowhere but here. The Reese Wasteland was home to few beasts, and no other races. The creatures that did walk this land were monsters, more akin to insects than any animal, and as dark-hearted as the land they crawled upon.

  Ky called on the power of his blade with the singing of a song, and he slid it into the side of the stone building. He slid the blade in, to the hilt, slicing a perfect circle in the tower. He grabbed the stones and, with a wrench of his might, ripped the wall free and stepped inside.

  The Breakion Coven had found, after much searching, the last of the Terakin bloodline. They had bound the last of the immortal seers and were, even then, sitting to make a meal of him. This boy had the power of first sight, the ability to see an outcome before it happens, to see the end of a struggle before it begins. They had gone to much trouble to find the boy. Now that he was in their clutches, they could become the most powerful force in the known world.

  Ky walked straight into their dining hall and, while they toasted the meal laid out before them, Ky slowly chose his song. He was a lyric smith, a mage who learned a song for every spell. He looked the boy in the eyes and smiled.

  The boy lay naked on a table before the coven. They each had long thin blades and were preparing to devour him alive. He whimpered when he saw Ky, and the table looked up. Ky lifted his song high and deadly in the air, and his sword began to dance.

  The spells of the coven were mighty and terrible, and they brought their magic to bear as Ky leaped atop the table and crouched over the lad. He touched the boy’s chest so no spell would strike him. He sang and moved among them. Blood followed every verse and every swing.

  The Trimerian Knight knew few rivals. Within moments, the entire coven had either died or fled. He laid a kiss on the boy’s forehead and encased the lad with a shimmering, impregnable globe. Ky promised he would return and rushed after Sister Killion, the most powerful of the order.

  He found her in the upper reaches of the tower, in a room enchanted with darkness. Ky entered, glowing white and unafraid. He stepped into the middle of the room and found death all around him.

  Sister Killion, one of the dread Witches of Deem, had grown up in the cemetery nation of Eloo. Death was hers to command. Bones rattled around Ky, rotting flesh and gasping undead at every turn.

  Necromancers were evil almost exclusively, and Ky had not known he would face one that day. He chose a song and began to sing, and death stepped out to greet him. With every swipe of his sword and every word of his song, he dropped them all to steaming parts of unlife. He sang his mightiest spell and the darkness in the room shattered. The woman before him, dressed in black spider-web lace, carried a silver goblet.

  “The Trimerians sent a singer to us. We know now that they fear our coven and my order.”

  Ky had nothing to say. He knew no pride, no reason to defend the bravery of his order. He shook his head. “I came for the boy.”

  “You have him. Nothing can stop you from taking him now.” She took a long drink of her goblet and, when she pulled away, a dark fog crawled out of the glass to cling to her face. As it moved across her features, Ky saw her skull, her jawbone, and her spine, all through the skin of her face and throat. She grinned and he stepped closer.

  “I came for the boy, but I will have you, too. Sister Killion is too corrupt, too vile to allow to live when I have her under my blade.”

  She dipped her pinky in her goblet and smiled as she licked it. “Have you heard of the banshee?”

  Ky desired to kill her then, but he held back, allowing for any information he might get. He wanted the Witches of Deem eradicated. If she was about to give a clue to their mysteries, he would give her a chance to spill it.

  “It is a terrible story, the banshee, a woman of noble birth who dies after losing a loved one. The poor soul cannot rest. She roams the lands of the estate, bemoaning her loss. She will, for generations to come, scream when she hears of the death of another in her family. Her scream is so terrible to hear that all who lay ear to it die a painful death. To hear the banshee is to know her loss, and to perish in the knowledge.”

  “This, I already knew,” Ky said. “The tales of the dead are known to my people. The fate of the banshee is an ill one for sure, but why talk of this in the hour of your death?”

  “It is not the hour of my death, Ky. It is the moment.” She stepped forward and tossed the contents of the goblet into his face. The black ichor gripped his face and held. It slid its way up his neck and across his lips. The liquid death sought his nose and mouth, and he choked and coughed. He opened his mouth to sing, but loosed such a hideous racket as to soil a soul. He fought to speak, but only a scream would come. His voice poured out into the air, and the Witch of Deem before him dropped to the ground, her head breaking open as she wept.

  “Ky killed every one of those men, women, and other creatures out there in your village with the sound of his voice. His people tried every spell they could. They sought to write spells that might free him of the banshee’s voice. But he will carry it around with him until the end of his life. He will kill anyone who hears his voice, as he killed the enemies of your village.”

  The priest looked at me, then back to Ky. “How do we help him?”

  “No magic or god can heal him. He must pull through, if he is to live, by himself and his own strength. Starve him. Any food will be his death. Give him tiny sips of water, but do not pour it down his throat. He will drown. But before all else, you must whisper. Whisper the names of every man, woman, and child he saved. Remind him how much you love him, because right now, Ky is wishing for death. He knows one day this curse will take his life. He desires that death, an end of all his suffering.
Remind him he is loved and needed, and Ky might come back to us.

  “Tell him I came to see him. Tell him I said he did a fine job.”

  Pock and Cock vs. The Necromantic Circle

  An Ashen Fells story

  By Paul Lavender

  Visalon walked slowly along the streets of Ashen Falls, each alternating footfall punctuated by a crack of her silver tipped cane. The limp and the cane were an affectation that she could easily have remedied, after all she was a necromancer.

  She thought the limp gave her a certain look, made her look like one of those preposterous villains from those human fairy stories.

  She spat onto the cobbles made wet with the light rain that had been falling for the last half an hour.

  Human!

  That word was like poison on her tongue, they were like furless, tailless rats. Well, like rats, they would soon find themselves being killed without mercy.

  Visalon looked at the shadowy parts of the streets as she walked along, and her eyes soon found the sleeping forms of children sleeping in the doorways and gutters.

  She spat again. This city had once been great, full of elvish love and laughter. Before the coming of man had began to dilute the pure elvish bloodlines.

  The irony of a necromancer wanting to bring back an age of purity and elvish enlightenment seemed to be completely lost on her.

  She spat for a third time. Half-elves!

  Soon Ashen Falls would be free of both humans and half-elves. It would start here and then it would spread, until there were none left in Esterada.

  Visalon was snapped out of her reverie by the faintest of touches, the sensation of a finger sliding in to one of the pockets in her robe. Looking down she saw the dirty face of a street urchin looking up at her with big brown eyes. He looked so sad…and vulnerable, “You really shouldn’t have done that boy.”

  Even as she spoke, the skin from the boy’s brow began to slide down over his eyes, and the boy started to open his mouth to scream even as his upper lip slid down to join his lower lip and seal his mouth closed.