ULTIMATE FANTASY (I - III)
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Volume Four available July 2012
Titled: LAMBS AND LEVIATHANS
Find it at: www.amazon.com
PRONOUNCIATION
AMICITIA – (Ah-mah-city-ya)
AUQUITINE – (Aw-kwi-teen)
LUECROKOTA – as it appears. (Lew-crow-kota)
WATAEO – (Wah-tay-o)
A SPECIAL PREVIEW
OF
LAMBS AND LEVIATHANS,
NOVELLA FOUR OF ULTIMATE FANTASY
DAMNED
The canyon floor from high-up above, a tunneled canopy of branches, a white horse...a gate...a stone tower reaching to the stars...fire. She watched the soundless visions in her mind. And then it was over. The images were gone. A dream? No.....
Elassia stood glaring out of her tower window into the stellar night sky, dressed in a black robe with her long, sable hair resting against her back. Far below her, between the snowy peaks, the jagged Black Corridor seemed to be as lifeless as cold ashes. The large, circular stone room around her was lined in unlit torches and nothing else. She had sealed-off all of the windows save one; one view into the world she left behind, long ago. All these years later, she was losing. There were new companies patrolling the roads in greater numbers; offing her precious worshippers, one by one. But now, it had called to her. She only need wait until its carrier provoked it again, and unknowingly gave her the sight. Then, with time and the right details, her seekers could find the hand that bears it.... At last, the realm would be hers.
This time, she had not only felt it; she had watched through its wanton eyes.
I know what it sees...
The empress had told her, years before, that she would never find it.
The sorceress watched a black spider descend the wall beside her, and she recalled the last time she saw the white witch; more than 13 years earlier. It was winter, and she was standing in this very same spot.
The empress had come to plead with her. She appeared from the darkness, like a spark, standing behind her in a flowing, light-green gown with her head held high, and her hands clasped together, resting on her front. The empress had been afraid to ask about her only surviving grandchild. The old, white witch had not seen him in any of her dreams for so long now, that she feared him dead.
“I've come to try and bring you home, my child.”
The sorceress did not turn around. She was not pleased.
“I had thought you dead, long ago,”
Elassia breathed-out heavily with great disdain.
“Some of us survived in the Sorrow Wood. I want you to return with me now.”
Elassia slowly turned around to face her mother.
The empress was older than she had remembered. Her long, silver hair waved gently down her shoulders, and her face showed the lines of countless years.
“You and the other prims. How dare you find me now. Return? For what? To scratch-out a living in the trees? Hiding like frightened children? We were the Dulariun! Powerful witches-”
“Yes we were!” the empress interrupted, shouting angrily, “Witches of light, Elassia! We are white witches! The power you seek is poison to our kind, and in time, it will ruin you and this realm! It has already corrupted your heart. Your deeds are dark. I have seen them in my dreams. I plead with you to come home. Let me bring you back. Come with me child, and we can rebuild a life. The men are not what they once were; we now live in relative peace. You must betray the darkness and return with me.”
Elassia turned her back to the empress, and faced-out the window again.
“And what are you now Mother?” she said coldly, as she tapped her long nails against the sill, “If not a timid, old crone hiding in the forest? You ask me to return with you, yet I am where I belong.... And I have much work to do yet,” she whispered, with a slight grin.
The empress hesitated. She knew more than Elassia could have imagined. As the white witch aged, her revelations had become clearer, more detailed, and she had seen much more in her dreams than she was prepared to let on. She looked to the floor in silence, and decided to show just one of her cards. Looking up at her daughter's bitter face, she spoke as a mother to a young, wild child.
“Stop all of this nonsense! That which you seek is gone! And you'll never find it.”
“Find what?” Elassia said, turning back to the window, knowing full-well what her mother was referring to.
“Elassia, the weapon you seek will bring an unknown darkness into this world.”
“I seek nothing.”
“Lies! That abomination you search for with those tortured creatures of yours.... I've seen them fouling the land. What cruel witchery of yours are they?”
Elassia spat back at her,
“I cannot see into time as you do Mother, but I know my destiny!”
“Elassia, I don't choose what I see, or when I will see it. The visions come in no order, and I have to decide which place in time they belong. I came here to save you, and the realm from yourself. I have seen the abhorrent things to come. That is your destiny.”
Elassia approached and suddenly grabbed her mother by her chin, digging her long nails painfully into her soft cheeks, and she screamed in her face,
“Terrible things you're right! I will scorch their lands and run them all, burning into the ground, along with their vermin off-spring! They will all die by black fire!”
Elassia leaned in closer; her eyes wide and dark, searching her mother's gaze, and said,
“What else do you know? What else is in your dreams?”
Elassia pushed the empress' face back and let go. Her mother stepped away, and wiped the blood from her chin.
She did not want it to come to this. As all mothers do, she loved her daughter, regardless of the monster that she had become. She had recently had another dream; something unrelated. Or perhaps not. She had seen a man die; a soldier; a colossal man wearing red and silver armor. He was of company with the infamous Veilmen. She saw him die from a hammer-blow to the skull. He died and then somehow...he returned to the world with a strange power. She heard his thunderous voice echoing, “I am the Father's hand.” He had come to cleanse the world of man's evils. Perhaps he was the answer.
If she could trick her daughter into killing this man first, then maybe when he returned to the living world, he would come for her head. He was the only one who could stop her now, and she had to be stopped before she found it. The empress had seen that too. She had to change that fate, no matter what. Even if the empress had desired to, she herself could not destroy the sorceress. Her daughter had grown far too powerful. Besides, she knew that she could never kill her own child. The white witch took a deep breath and said,
“Very well. If you cannot be reasoned with, then I must warn you. I had a dream Elassia, of things that have not yet come to pass.”
“Yes? Enlighten me.” Elassia sneered.
The empress paused, knowing that once she spoke, she may be interrupting the natural order of things. She did not know which soldier he was. There were many soldiers, and many different units that he could be company with. Elassia would likely kill them all, every last one, just to be sure that none could be a threat to her.
The empress would have to live with their death's. She decided she had to try, at any cost.
She looked at her daughter with a deep and genuine sadness in her eyes.
“Beware the Veilman soldier. He bears the red and silver plate. He will come for you.”
Elassia laughed and said,
“With a whisper, I can melt a man's armor into his flesh, or twist his bones into shattered splinters. I fear no man.”
“You do not understand child. He is no ordinary man.”
Elassia was furious.
“Leave! Leave me now, you wretched crone!” Elassia ran to the wall and reached for a cold torch to throw at her mother, but when she turned around, the empress was already gone; vanished into thin air, just the opposite way she had arrived.
The sorc
eress went back to the window, closed her eyes, and chanted hastily; implanting the images into her seeker's minds on the ground and in the skies. Hours passed, and finally, at the sun's crest, she learned from her ravens and wolves, of a small cavalry unit bearing red and silver armor, traveling on the eastern side of the Void, heading toward the Sorrow Wood. There was only one way that they could cross the Void.
She turned and made her way down the long stone flight from the top of her tower to blow the bellow-horns and call her wild men. The long, brass pipes stretching out from the belly of the fortress, to the walls outside, hummed low and horrible, like a dying beast; carrying her call through the mountain passes, and into the dark forests.
Soon after, when they had all gathered at the steps to her fortress in a reckless formation, 50 strong, with their clubs and spears, she walked out into the dawn to address her enslaved horde. She was a goddess to them. They worshiped her; the one who never aged. The one who's whisper could crack their teeth and bones. The ragged hides covering their bodies made them look as though they were once wild animals, hacked into pieces, and then sewn back together in no order at all. Seven large, gray, white-eyed wolves appeared from the fortress doors behind Elassia, and sat at her sides, glaring out at the tribesman.
“Savages!” she cried to her wild audience, “You seek the riders in red and silver. Their horses move now, in the direction of the sun. Let the wolves guide you! When you find the riders, take them all the way of your kind; feast upon them, and do not fail to leave none alive!”
But they would fail her; leaving nine alive. She would exhaust herself for two full days; summoning the winged nameless-one. He would find and crush them all.
About The Author
J. G. Cuff is the creator and author of the Ultimate Fantasy Series. He lives on British Columbia's coast and spends his winters writing and caring for his wife and daughter.
Come and say 'Hello' at:
www. johntherabid.wordpress.com
Table of Contents
Unnamed
THE BUCKSKIN 26
FOUND 41
LUECROKOTA 49
BLIND 68
THE DEVIL INSIDE 71
WHITE NIGHTMARE 75
REKINDLED 86
OF RAVENS AND WOLVES 103
REBORN 142
PERFECT DARKNESS 150
CARVED 173
THE OLD WEST ROAD 188
FIRST BLOOD 192
GENTLE GIANT 202
TAKEN 227
RABID IN HIS NAME 247
THE GEHENNA TOWERS 254
NINETY - THREE 276
A HOPE IN HELL 296
AWAKEN 314
THIRTEEN YEARS 338
WHITE LIGHTENING 356
Unnamed
A SPECIAL PREVIEW 390
Table of Contents
Unnamed
THE BUCKSKIN 26
FOUND 41
LUECROKOTA 49
BLIND 68
THE DEVIL INSIDE 71
WHITE NIGHTMARE 75
REKINDLED 86
OF RAVENS AND WOLVES 103
REBORN 142
PERFECT DARKNESS 150
CARVED 173
THE OLD WEST ROAD 188
FIRST BLOOD 192
GENTLE GIANT 202
TAKEN 227
RABID IN HIS NAME 247
THE GEHENNA TOWERS 254
NINETY - THREE 276
A HOPE IN HELL 296
AWAKEN 314
THIRTEEN YEARS 338
WHITE LIGHTENING 356
Unnamed
A SPECIAL PREVIEW 390