"Make your choice!" The voice of Winter roared as Jess turned away from the artifacts glimmering so potently, each of them possessing, Jess thought, power to rival the greatest artifacts to be found upon the face of Dawn.
Yet there was something even more potent to be found.
A treasure beyond compare.
Winter itself.
Jess allowed herself a grim smile as she brushed aside several stone tablets toppled upon an ancient horned helm, so popular with ancient shaman kings, endless ages ago.
Jess's hands trembled before the hideous artifact, even as Josie gasped and heaved in Malek's protective arms.
"You dare approach me, before taking your prize and swearing your allegiance? Choose again, fool! Choose your prize of all the treasures in this chamber, for only then will you be allowed to leave. To fulfill the destiny I have foreseen!"
Jess flashed the bleakest of smiles, no longer fearing the horrific cold radiating from the awful helm. Knowing the bitter frost was of the soul, and her soul was hot with fiercest need.
She screamed as she gripped the artifact in hands suddenly frozen to ice, desperate to escape the horrific, all too tempting destiny this ancient god of Winter had doomed upon her.
"You cannot leave until you choose!" The helm roared even as Jess screamed.
"I have made my choice, avatar of Winter, and it is you!" Jess sobbed, lurching forward under the hideous weight.
Twilight chuckled softly, pitiless nod ignoring Jess's awful suffering. "Well done, my mistress, but this is no place to dawdle. If ever there was a time for haste, it is now."
Jess whimpered but complied, even as it felt like her very soul was being sucked into the glowing amber pits that served as eyes in that hideous helm, Jess fighting with every fiber of her being to hang tightly to her body, forcing herself towards the doorway that had of course always been there, just hidden between bookshelf and shadow, only needing a moment's clarity to see.
And not a moment too soon, as awful mist began to close in once more.
"No! You will stop, you will take your prize, as I have seen it, as I have foretold!" The helmet roared with the voice of the chamber entire, the great room beginning to shake apart as if the very earth shuddered, book cases toppling, the ceiling itself collapsing in a terrible rain of rubble, Jess and Malek propelling themselves out of the room an instant before it caved in entirely with the most awful of roars, both of them desperate to outrun the choking cloud of dust that left them hacking and coughing, Josie's gasping turning to a desperate, choking wheeze.
They found themselves racing down endless winding corridors seemingly without end, Jess trusting her gut as best she could, choking despair and the helm's awful whispers both sapping her strength, even as Malek's anxious eyes and her familiar's nip to sensitive ear lobe spurred her ever on.
Finally, the dust-filled passageway opened up into a great formal chamber, and Jess’s eyes widened with surprise and relief, seeing that, somehow, they had arrived near the entrance, though her bump of direction could make no sense of the many twists and turns they had navigated within that twisted realm of dream and nightmare. It was the same great ballroom they had first encountered near the entrance of the great tower, what seemed a lifetime ago.
There were numerous tables laid out in the room's center, laden with fine silver plate sets and cutlery. Oddly, it appeared that several sets were missing, incongruous to the pristinely preserved nature the room had presented before. Jess strode purposely through the great hall and towards the exit, deliberately ignoring the ghostly shapes she could make out forming from the midst out of the corner of her eye.
“Damn!" Malek muttered. "It's disappearing. It's all disappearing. We aren't getting out of here a moment too soon."
Jess swallowed, sneaking a furtive glance behind them, the howl of Winter and blinding mist but a heartbeat behind them, swallowing the entrance to the ball room, creeping toward them as if it were a sentient thing.
They quickly made their way across the ancient room and down the corridor to the great door guarding the entrance, Malek giving forth a great sigh of relief as he swung open the freely hanging oaken door, breathing deep of the fresh air and smiling at the sunlight caressing his skin as he made his way out of the keep, gently carrying Josie in his arms.
Jess allowed herself one glance back, seeing the hideous wall of winter mist creeping ever closer to the exit. She shivered, slamming the oaken door shut with her foot, and walked purposely toward the dark woods surrounding the grove.
She swallowed, knowing that through those woods was the path that would take them away from this strange tower trapped within the realm of dreams, and back to the waking world once more.
It was everything she could do not to drop the helm, though she knew that to do so now would spell disaster. Grimly she forced herself to look at her hands, gauntlets somehow lost in the madness, naked flesh pale but very much living, for all that it felt as if it had frozen to bitter ice, long ago.
Jess blinked, recalling her sword, the conduit that had allowed her to touch dream with steel as if it was her direct will alone that had struck down the ancient foes and enchantments that had so hungered to stop her advance.
Slowly, she lifted one clawed hand from the awful helm even as she collapsed to her knees, carefully clutching the helm to her even though her thighs were pierced by sudden cold, slowly pulling free a single small sack from her belt, gazing at her familiar once more.
Twilight smiled. "I don't see why it wouldn't work, mistress."
Jess nodded, even as she drew her dirk and carefully gouged open her cheek once more, the sharp pain a relief from the awful numbness strangling her will.
"Jess, what are you doing? We need to get out of here now, or Josie will die!" Malek's panicked voice.
"Silence, Hound. Our mistress must not be disturbed, not for this working."
Jess swallowed, keeping focus, forcing her trembling palm to cup the blood dribbling from her torn flesh, allowing her fingers to streak across the burlap sack, feeling the potency of the strange sigils she marked upon the face of it, mirrored by the markings she placed upon the helm, for all that she screamed, her mind blazing with all the horrors of Winter, Malek himself steadying her as Josie whimpered and gasped.
"Jess, what by all the gods are you doing?"
Jess took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm not sure. I think, maybe, this will bind the helm, so it won't slip free of my grip when we stride between worlds once more. And if I'm really lucky..."
Exchanging a quick look with her familiar whose grin told her absolutely nothing, she slipped that terrible artifact into her sack.
The howling madness of Winter abruptly stopped.
Jess shuddered with relief, her mind clear once more.
Malek gazed at her in awe as she gave a satisfied nod, securing the sack to her belt, bulky as it was, before approaching Josie's writhing form, her shieldbrother futilely trying to comfort her.
"Jess, what exactly did you just do?"
"Don't worry about it, Malek. The important thing is that it is contained. I think."
"You think?"
Jess stopped and took a calming breath, gazing down at a now desperately wheezing Josie, her eyes wide with panic as she gasped and struggled for air, suddenly filled with the dread certainty that her dear friend wouldn't survive the journey back. Only in that horrific moment did Jess recall that Josie would not be the first to perish upon that twisted path between worlds.
Jess moaned in sudden grief. “Oh gods, Abe! How could I forget him.?”
Malek gazed at Jess sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“Abe! That silly redheaded boy who was always so, well, enthusiastic. Cheerful. But not very skilled. Don't you remember? The boy who almost managed to decapitate himself with his own sword?" She fought to hold back sudden tears. "He always had such a crush on me. Such a sweet puppy. I was always flattered by it, but never took it seriously."
S
he turned to face her friend, tears streaming down her cheeks. “By the gods, Malek, he died this night! Right here, when he tried to follow us into Regio. It just tore him up. He couldn’t make it. And we forgot. We forgot he was ever alive in the first place! I still remember his cries, when his very soul was flayed by the Void…” Her chest heaved as she sobbed, tears of regret and grief falling gently upon Josie. “We already lost one, and forgot the boy had even existed. I don’t want to lose her, okay Malek? I don’t want Josie to die, and to forget she even existed!"
Malek hissed in anxious frustration, and somehow Jess sensed how deeply seeing her in distress pained Malek. “Saints above, Jess. I’ve seen you do some pretty remarkable things this night. There has to be something we can do. Didn’t you heal me earlier? Patch me up somehow, tie me tighter into my dream after I had suffered that wound?”
Jess nodded thoughtfully, gently stroking Josie’s back as she continued to struggle for breath, squeezing Jess’s hand desperately, as if the very realm were trying to crush her out of existence. “That’s right, I did!” Jess then gently laid her cheek against Josie’s brow, closed her eyes, and tried to sense the whole of her friend. Not just the injuries suffered to limbs, but the weight that was crushing her very soul.
55
After several anxious moments, Jess at last spied a mysterious silvery blue webbing interwoven through her friend. It was a shimmering network of such incredible complexity that it dazzled Jess, leaving her breathless with a sense of awe and wonder, thinking that perhaps she had caught a glimpse of her companion's very soul. Carefully, Jess noted the areas of Josie's essence that were distorted and mangled, in perfect sympathetic response to the broken arms the girl had suffered from her horrid abduction.
Gently, with painstaking precision, Jess smoothed the jangled strands, only dimly hearing the great gasp that turned to a relaxed sigh of relief from her patient. Jess smiled as she sensed through those strands that Josie had felt a sudden easing of her many pains.
Yet the greater pain, the more terrible danger, was the weight of the Shadowrealm itself, somehow pressing upon Josie’s very soul, as if she were a drowned sailor sinking to the blackest depths of the sea, and the ocean’s weight was somehow crushing her to a pulp.
It was as if the Dreamrealms were rejecting her. She had plunged too soon, too deep into madness. The tiny flicker of potential that might allow Josie to survive gentle shallows of reverie was too fragile to endure the depths of nightmare. Jess fought hard to control her panic, only grateful that Josie was, in her own way, far more resilient than most. Somehow Jess was certain that most souls pulled directly into that dread keep would have died within moments, just like a certain redheaded boy whose name already escaped her, for all that flashes of his adoring smile and the horror of his final screams haunted her still. Yet that flicker of hope for Josie's future meant nothing if she didn't act, and soon. She had only minutes before her friend succumbed at last to the terrible forces crushing her soul.
“Think, Jess!” she demanded of herself, and the gentle prick of Twilight’s paws jolted forward memories of the terrible battles they had survived this night, reminding her of the odd weakness that had allowed her to best even the most terrible foes she had faced.
Malek's hand squeezed her armored shoulder. "If you can contain the spirit of Winter, you should be able to keep Josie's soul safe inside her body, Jess."
Jess nodded. "You're right, Malek. Just... let me get the feel of it, okay?" Her blood. Somehow, her blood was the key. Just as she could shape the dreams by weight of her will, the conduit was her touch, her flesh, her blood. Allowing her to channel the raw power of her desires. Blood upon blade to cleave the most potent of foes. Runes forged of her essence, alive with her will, able to contain the embodiment of winter. At least, for a time.
Just as Twilight had counseled that she and Malek would be able to lock treasures found in this mad, unstable realm into permanency by their touch and will alone, so too Jess hoped to be able to lock in her friend’s existence as well.
“Josie, I’m going to try something. Please don’t be alarmed, okay?”
Striving to hold the entropic powers of Regio at bay by sheer willpower, Jess locked the mental image she had of the first friend she had ever made at Highrock fiercely tight within her heart. Josie's desperate, pleading soul shook her, clinging to Jess as if she were her last hope of salvation.
Jess opened her eyes to see Josie gazing into her own, smiling with relief even as she continued to gasp for air. “Thank you, Jess, whatever you did. My arms no longer feel like shattered kindling. Already you prove yourself a master of healing arts beyond any mortal wizard.” She tried to laugh, but ended up wheezing instead.
Jess was stunned for a moment, her heart suddenly pounding, cheeks flushed. For that moment when Josie's eyes had caught her own, she felt thunderstruck. Awed. She knew not what had befallen her for those moments, but she would swear she had never seen such a beautiful soul.
“Good,” Jess said at last. “I’m going to try to lock you to this realm, bind you to me, so I can help you maintain yourself, even as this realm tries to make you fade away.” Jess hissed sharply, reopening the cut on her cheek that she had sliced open so many times that evening, just knowing it would leave a scar. Yet she needed to see and feel her friend in her entirety. With but a thought, the ragged clothes Josie had been wearing were gone as if they had never been. And perhaps they hadn't ever been more than wisps of projected dream.
Quickly and methodically, Jess began painting a webbing of crimson over the entirety of her friend’s now naked body. It looked like nothing so much as an abstract splattering of crooked lines and dots to Jess, even as she let her intuition alone guide her hands, knowing in her gut that somehow it all resonated perfectly.
“What the heck is that supposed to do, Jess?" Malek finally asked, his frown making it clear that he was unable to make heads or tails of it. "It's even stranger than the markings upon the sack! Your work bears no resemblance to any magic I've ever heard of."
Twilight pinned Malek with his sapphire gaze. “Are you so sure of that, Hound?”
Malek grimaced, blinking, gazing at the work in progress with suddenly haunted eyes. “That's Bloodmagic. All of it! You used it like Rens would his containment wards, and like Josie would her healing arts. By all the gods, Jess, how?"
Jess shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. I’m just hoping it will help.”
Malek gave her a look, then grinned. “Right. What do I know, eh? You've already saved me from one nasty gut wound that should have killed me in short order. I guess things in this realm will pretty much work the way you want them to, if you have the passion sufficient to make your will heard, so to speak.”
Jess smiled back. “Something like that, I’m sure.”
Twilight, however, was gazing at Josie, still panting, with a critical air. “The pattern’s satisfactory, especially for freehand intuition, but you are not quite done yet. This deep in the realm of Shadow, you need to seal your ward off with more than just blood." Gentle sapphire eyes gazed into her own. "It needs to be your soul, Jess. You must anchor her with the love in your heart, the hot resolve locked deep within, such that existence itself recognizes your claim."
Jess took a deep breath. “I know. Horseshite, I know! Bloody hell!” She scrunched her eyes tight, feeling her heart hammering in renewed desperation as Josie’s wheezing, only momentarily eased, began anew. Her mind flashed with Josie’s tremulous smile. So many times they had bonded with wine and laughter, the dearest of friends since their first days at school together, talking late into the night about life, love, their futures, before Jess had become immersed in the life of a Squire. Jess knew Josie had been confused and saddened when she had slowly pulled away, not understanding how difficult it was for her, loving her healer friend so much, even as Jess herself was being trained as the most savage and ruthless of killers, so much blood on her hands during that endless summer.
>
Jess swallowed. Or perhaps it had been autumn that had captivated them for so very long, leaves only beginning to turn, endless days of reverie interspersed with nights of battle and terror. Jess and her fellow Squires, Eloquin's mad merry band, blackening their daggers and embracing the High Hunt ever more. An eternity locked in a single season, and never before did Jess stop to think that, as much as she had dreamed of adventure, she had been lost in a faerie tale for as long as she could remember.
And now the seasons would turn once more, endless autumn glory embracing winter at last.
“Josie?” Jess’s voice was almost tremulous. She bit her lip so hard it started to bleed.
“Yes, Jess, what's wrong?" Josie asked softly, breathless from the terrible pressure overwhelming her, eyes both filled with fear and, when gazing at Jess, hope. The weight of it made Jess's heart ache.
“I’m going to try something. I don’t know if it will work, but… can I kiss you?”
Josie’s eyes widened with surprise, before gazing upon Jess with a tender warmth. An impish smile teased across her lips. “If a kiss will ignite whatever Druidic magics lie within your heart and save me, then kiss away, my dearest friend. Even Raphael would understand."
Jess grinned at that, recalling all too many times when she had teased them both, having drunk perhaps a bit more wine than had been good for her. Gentle thoughts for saner times, she scolded herself, lost in her friend’s desperate gaze, fingertips gently stroking soft cheeks, as her lips lowered to meet Josie's own.
Their flesh touched, a gentle kiss, and Jess felt her heart hammer with an exhilaration and sweetness that left her suddenly dizzy. Nothing like the terrible rush of battle, but her heart still began to race. Josie’s lips locked upon her own, and Jess murmured her sweet pleasure, every nerve ending tingling, overwhelmed with nameless hunger. She was able to focus her dizzied thoughts only long enough to lick Josie’s tongue with her own bloody one.
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