by Ross Turner
Though their situation was a fearful one, oddly they felt a little better in the warmth of the late afternoon air rolling tenderly over the demon-kissed geography of Land. Isabel sighed mournfully, almost regretfully at the thought of what had once been her home and now lay before her in tatters. Surely this couldn’t be the fate of her fellow townsfolk, many of whom were her trusted friends.
But as her thoughts bounced, even if Land could be saved, she would never call it home again. A single tear escaped her and she quickly wiped it away.
Her only surviving rock and the closest thing she had to a remaining kinsman placed a caring arm round her shoulders, and her young, brave and enthusiastic friend smiled lovingly at the couple as they all realised the significance of that simple embrace.
They could see the Great Forest more clearly in the distance now, and what they saw disturbed them.
From between the trees in the distance a surging black mass flowed out across the fields, tearing down fences and walls as it moved, spreading out and out and out across the landscape. Before long it stretched all the way from what they could see of the west coast to what they could see of the east, and continued swarming towards them.
“Zan get ready, stay with me, Ayva you’re going to need to move…a lot.” They knew what to do. This was it. It was time.
The mass soon moved round behind them to the bridge, joining with another that had risen seemingly from the earth and dirt itself, and encircled them completely. But still more and more of it gushed out from the Great Forest and rose from the ground all around them. Within minutes it seemed as if the landscape was a flowing black ocean surging in on the three friends waiting steadfast for it to attack.
It advanced on them, encroaching closer and diminishing the trapped hole they now found themselves in.
As their breathing space lessened further the blackness drew closer and Isabel was able to make out individual demons, just as had been the case in Hinaktor. And again, just as in Hinaktor, the enormous horde of beasts consisted of demons all shapes and sizes. The smaller, more agile ones charged out in front, usually on four legs, and the slower lumbering and more powerful ones brought up the rear. There were some that had found an in-between on two legs and still managed to retain at least enough athleticism to run.
The army closed in.
Zanriath was the first to act. A colossal ring of fire erupted from his very hands, not even phasing Isabel or Ayva, and billowed out in roaring anger, gaining speed and heat and size, forging a furious maelstrom. The demons did not falter. They were too rage blind by now, and getting closer.
The circular flaming wall smashed through the first wave of demons, disintegrating some in an instant, making the second wave close behind a little more hesitant as it hurtled towards them. Some picked up speed and managed to blunder through it while others manhandled the weaker demons around them and used them as shields to protect themselves.
The flames rippled through the demonic swarm but eventually dissipated. With beads of sweat visible on his forehead Zanriath was breathing more heavily. It had been a successful and devastating defence, but costly and sadly only temporary. Soon the demons regained their momentum and more still came.
To save such enormous effort Zanriath concocted massive fireballs instead, hurtling them in every direction, slowing the demonic advance just as effectively and for a little more time, though it was still very tiring.
The real horror began when they came into close enough range for Ayva to join Zanriath’s onslaught.
Isabel closed her eyes and began her incantations, still seeing and feeling every single demon reaching for her. Her mind was completely impenetrable at this point, the demons’ only chance was to get to her physically, and their only chance was for her to get them out.
Ayva’s arm moved so fast that the blur almost looked solid, loosing flaming arrow after arrow, her hand snapping back to her quiver almost before the previous arrow had left the string, sending searing fire bolts coursing through the demonic ranks, often killing multiple demons at a time. Ayva and Zanriath’s combined efforts created a blinding firestorm that ravaged destruction amongst the encroaching ranks.
They felled demons by the hundreds, but the endless waves continued to swarm. Zanriath focused with all his might, but he was tiring. Ayva had almost depleted her arrows but the demons were close now and she turned to her blades, drawing them with the hissing ring of steel.
Zanriath rooted himself at Isabel’s side and Ayva measured her strikes at the encroaching beasts. They had to protect her. Zanriath kept a protective ring of flames burning around them but it only slowed the demons a little, it didn’t stop them.
Ayva sliced at their ranks horrifically in huge sweeping arcs, every strike erupting into a twenty-foot thunderous blaze of hatred, revenge and anguish. The screams she let out with every attack were almost more frightening than the searing and Godly blades themselves, echoing her malevolence for miles around for every demon to hear. She darted backwards and forwards like lightning, ducking and twisting to avoid attacks and striking down as many as she could.
Isabel stood silently, hearing no flames, no screams, and no cries of pain as flesh was scalded and sliced by fire and blade. Her mind reached out to the thousands of minds focused on her demise. Using the source of their own power against them she extracted all knowledge of their realm. She called out to Depozi. She taunted Him, convincing Him that she was untouchable. He took her bait. Even Zanriath and Ayva heard His roaring cries of frustration far off in the physical world.
Isabel smiled. She had Him. He was in the Lair of the Demonic, and now she felt His mind. He suddenly realised what she was doing and frantically tried to pull away. But it was too late. She was inside. She just had to find it. Not the demonic realm, she already had that. Through her mind’s eye she saw it as an ugly black smudge in the universe, poised threateningly between the realms and galaxies all around it. She just needed the opening, the tear He had so foolishly created. It didn’t take long.
She found it.
Ayva cried out in desperation as with each stroke she tired further, and each wave of demons inched a little closer. Her laboured breathing matched Zanriath’s and his efforts were draining his energy rapidly. Every new burst of flame felt as if it sapped the life from his very soul. They were almost at their limits, and the demons weren’t ceasing. They charged relentlessly, completely lost to bloodlust. They redoubled their efforts time and time again but now their weak human bodies were failing them and Isabel still remained silent and motionless.
“Isabel!” Zanriath cried breathlessly. “Isabel!!!” Ayva dismembered a charging beast with a double stroke of her flaming swords and snapped her head briefly.
“ISABEL!! WE CAN’T HOLD!!” But still she received no response. Their circle was getting smaller; they had no room to move. They stood either side of the perfectly still and soundless Isabel. Soon they would fall, and Isabel would die with them.
“DO IT ISABEL!!” Zanriath cried, falling to one knee as a lumbering giant almost overwhelmed him, only surviving by ducking and obliterating the beast with a difficult and equally costly burst of intense flame.
Suddenly Ayva faltered as three demons jumped her simultaneously. She cried out in vain as they rammed her to the ground. Two bigger demons grabbed them and forced them off, wanting Ayva for themselves. She struck out blindly and stabbed one through the head. Her searing blade cut cleanly through flesh and bone and the beast’s sizzling skin slopped to the floor at her feet. But the other was too fast. She was going to die.
Zanriath too, in his efforts to get to Ayva and still protect Isabel, had been knocked down and four pairs of razor teeth and rivalled fangs bore down upon him. It was over.
Claws raked down and howls of victory rang through the air as the successors made their final attack, eager to get to the one they really wanted. Their blows were swift and purposeful.
Fists thudded the scorched earth and fangs and claws sunk into soil, followed shortl
y by a thousand tortured shrieks of disappointment, from the demons and Depozi alike, observing from His Lair, knowing that now, at last, the inevitable had finally caught up with Him.
The thwarted army ceased their cries and stared with helpless longing at the empty blackened circle that their horde now surrounded.
The twisted and demented and confused God cursed His brothers’ in anger and hatred, in sorrow and regret, in temptation and jealousy.
It had finally come to this. He had known all along He would be unable to impede Isabel but, wrongly, He had convinced Himself otherwise. Now all attempts had failed and she was stronger than ever before. The voice that was not of a God had instructed Him it would be so, and He had endeavoured to disobey it, to kill her.
But it seemed that the voice could not be disobeyed, as the Demon-Lord’s every effort fell futile and only impelled Isabel further.
The shamed God sighed the discontented sigh of a being that has lost its way in life. The consequences for such an error are often great, especially, it would seem, when such a being is an immortal.
The time had come now. He was no longer observing.
He was waiting.
39
Ayva lay on the ground, her eyes tight shut and her arms swinging wildly, desperately hoping to knock the looming demon from its attack. Zanriath too was on the floor, winded from the heavy blow he had taken and gasping for breath. His skin was alight with flame in a last futile attempt to keep the groping beasts at bay long enough for him to recover.
But nothing happened. Ayva’s blades made no contact and their fires died. Zanriath recovered quickly and without so much as a scratch, and the fire of his skin ceased. They opened their eyes cautiously and looked around confused. There was nothing, an empty blackness in every direction. They heard a sigh behind them and snapped to look, still afraid. It was Isabel. She opened her eyes and breathed deeply.
“Thank you.” Her voice was soft and calm and her words indisputably honest. They said nothing, staring at her with their mouths agape, still not even knowing what had happened.
“Where are we?” Zanriath began slowing clambering to his feet still clutching his ribs, applying light pressure to them with confusion at the throbbing pain that had knocked the breath from his lungs that seemed to no longer exist. Ayva followed his lead, her injuries too having vanished.
“You can’t feel pain here.” Isabel told them.
“What happened Isabel?” Ayva asked.
“It worked.” She answered them both with a smile opening her arms.
“So this is the Lair of the Demonic?” Ayva asked looking round sceptically at the endless black, vast nothingness that surrounded them.
“No, you’re right, it’s not.” Isabel said calmingly. “I saw Depozi. He’s more confused than we thought. I teased Him and He thought I was trying to challenge Him. I just wanted to see inside His mind.”
“And you got in…?” Zanriath said, presuming she had succeeded by the fact that they were all still alive.
“I did indeed. I wanted to find Him so that I was sure He was in the Lair of the Demonic.”
“So where are we now?” Ayva urged.
“I was getting to that.” Isabel said. She took a deep breath and eyed them both quite cautiously, speaking slowly. “At the moment we aren’t anywhere, so to speak, we are in my thoughts. I need to explain the rules to you both first - where we’re going is very dangerous.” Their bewildered looks showed her that she had made the right decision.
“In your thoughts?” Ayva asked. “How…?”
“Physically we’re still in Tamarack, but our bodies have dissipated because I have separated our minds from them.” Zanriath was next to question her in utter disbelief.
“Sorry…?” He started disbelievingly. “Where have our bodies gone?”
“At the moment…they’re everywhere, scattered across Tamarack in billions of fragments. The Gods can’t put us in one place because we’re not in one place. I told you, we’re nowhere. Your thoughts are in my thoughts.” They said nothing for a moment, Isabel imagined, out of both bewilderment and sheer disbelief. “Trust me.” She urged them softly, a hint of pleading in her voice, knowing she couldn’t hold them in this state of nothingness forever, and trying to will that urgency into her friends.
“So…where are we going? What are the rules?” Zanriath was the first to ask.
“We’re going to the Lair of the Demonic, just as we planned, but the only way to get there is by the route I know. The rules are simple. When I take us through the tear and into the demonic realm, we will be in a very precarious situation. I will control everything, don’t worry about following the demons, I’ll do it all.”
“Won’t they already be there?” Ayva asked concerned. “I mean, you said you had to follow them, which is why we had to kill them. While you’re here explaining this to us, aren’t we wasting time - their souls will already have gone to Depozi?”
“We’re not in a physical realm, remember?” Isabel replied understandingly. “I’m not ‘here’ explaining this to you, because we aren’t ‘here,’ we’re nowhere. We’re not wasting time because the fact that we are nowhere, and that there is nothing here, means that the concept of time doesn’t exist either.” Ayva choked a little on that concept, but Isabel continued quickly to avoid further questions. “The rules are simple.” She instructed. “Don’t step off.”
“Step off? Step off what?” Zanriath looked even more puzzled now.
“My thoughts.” She said decidedly. “If you step off in the demonic realm, you’re stuck there. Here you’re safe, you can move freely, but there I have less freedom and therefore so do you. I have to be quick, and to be quick I need to simplify my thoughts down to a level that my mind can cope with. I know it’s confusing, please just trust me. I won’t be able to stop you, I’ll be pre-occupied, so please don’t step off the thought that I create. If you do I’ll lose you to that realm, and I won’t be able to bring you back.”
“We trust you.” Zanriath assured her and Ayva nodded in agreement, swallowing hard at the disturbing thoughts she was placing at the forefront of their minds.
“Yes.” She said. “I don’t understand it, but as long as you do, then it doesn’t matter I suppose.” She smiled meekly and squared her shoulders. “Let’s go Isabel. Let’s finish it.”
Isabel smiled at them both and began thinking her route through, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments.
In an instant the blackness all around them dissolved and they stood in a cold, misty graveyard, with gravestones littered randomly all around. The air was damp and gloom hung heavily over the three of them in her mind. Dead trees surrounded them and the graves all looked as if they hadn’t been touched for years, each one decorated with dead and rotten flowers. The air hung so heavily because there was no wind, not even a breeze, leaving the atmosphere stagnant.
“A cemetery?” Zanriath questioned, but he silenced immediately as Isabel lifted one hand with a finger raised, her other hand coming slowly up to cover her quivering mouth. She stared down at one grave in particular. From where he stood he couldn’t see what was engraved on the tombstone and moved round to Isabel’s side. The dead flowers at its base had once boasted beautiful red petals, but now drooped and were almost black, with the darkest tint of red still visible. Ayva moved to Isabel’s side also.
They needn’t have said anything. Zanriath placed a tender hand on Isabel’s shoulder and she rested her cheek on it, comforted by the warmth it gave her, the feel of his skin soft and caring against hers. The grave belonged to Isabel’s mother. Somehow Zanriath and Ayva both knew this was real. They were in Isabel’s memory as she thought of her mother’s grave, lying alone in Land, on the outskirts of Aproklis.
A small teardrop squeezed through Isabel’s restraint and trickled down her face before falling silently from her cheek.
The teardrop fell to the floor not with a thud, but a splash, and Zanriath and Ayva jerked their heads up an
d looked round in a combination of confusion and amazement. Isabel stood staring at exactly the same spot where the grave had just been, but now there was only a stagnant pool of water, which they all stood atop.
Zanriath and Ayva looked nervously down at their feet, resting precariously on the surface of the foul-smelling pond.
“Don’t worry.” Isabel whispered softly. “You won’t sink.” The marsh they now stood in was also covered with mist, but this mist hung like a bad smell rather than just damp in the air. And it was warm, very warm, and that only made the sticky, peaty stench even worse.
“We’re going towards the Lair of the Demonic…” Zanriath began quietly, at least slight understanding dawning on his face. “From the bridge, then to the grave, presumably in Aproklis, now to the marshes on the south coast…and then where?” Isabel didn’t reply.
“Next is the ocean.” Ayva whispered back.
The noise of a hundred insects and vermin was loud and obnoxious and Zanriath could see them flitting between the soggy trees up from the bank of the pond. A thick blanket of algae covered the water and made it look even more uninhabitable, though air bubbles rose through small escapes here and there.
The marsh extended as far into the distance as any of them could see, just as the blackness had done originally. They could see a very slow moving river just through a thinner line of trees and an abandoned boat floating alone down the centre, the wooden hull was already overgrown with algae and moss and it was slowly starting to leak - fated surely to sink into the depths amidst its loneliness and abandonment.
He turned to Isabel to speak again but was cut short as the water and the heat and the smell and the noise all disappeared. Everything was silent for a second before a storm force gale slammed into them, feeling like it should have sent them spiralling backward, but somehow they remained rooted perfectly to where they stood, which, as he and Ayva looked down, seemed to be upon nothing.
Ayva let out a small cry before bringing her hand to her mouth and Zanriath’s heart skipped a beat, his hand clutching Isabel’s shoulder much more tightly.