Beauty In The Beast

by Erik Schubach

  Chapter 6 - Beast

  My legs grew weary and my feet sore as the sun began to set that evening; Wilhelm wouldn't let us stop to rest. He kept looking at the sky, muttering about timetables. I'd follow his gaze but never saw anything unusual, I believe he saw things I couldn't comprehend. We left the road to head deep into the forest, they seemed to be able to see clearly in the night, I stumbled around like a drunken donkey thrashing about in the underbrush. I hesitated a moment when I realized they weren't even making any noise or disturbing anything in their passing, almost as if they weren't part of the world they were moving through. That... would explain a few things, but raise even more questions. They slowed and started helping me move more quietly, as we approached a roaring fire in a clearing. I could hear a man chanting in a tongue I didn't understand, but it made my ears ache, and my breastbone began to heat under the influence of the talisman. Another voice could be heard, a man pleading... for his life? I could taste his anger and fear. The first man stopped chanting and chuckled in a way that felt like poison sliding around me, he was on the verge of madness, and his emotions were dark and cloying. He said, “You're a thief and a murderer, not even God will have mercy upon your soul. Especially where I'm sending you.” Then the chanting and pleading started again. I looked to the brothers, who seemed to be able to see through the thick brush. “What's happening?” I had an idea, as I could feel nature around me pulling back as something so dark and insidious started to spill out into the world. The man was about to bring a demon into this world and bind it to his will. I looked at Jacob and Wilhelm, and Jacob shrugged and smiled as he said, “I don't know, why don't you go see?” Then the man shoved me unceremoniously through the brush. I stumbled into the clearing behind a man who plunged a dagger he was holding high above his head into the chest of a rough looking man who was stretched out on the ground. His limbs were splayed, each tied with ropes that were staked into the ground. I could actually see everything that made him what he was, was torn violently from his body and into a large witches circle that was drawn around the roaring fire. I felt his last instant of sheer terror and pain. I grabbed my head and screamed as it felt as if the floodgates of suffering and rage had been opened into this world. The evil was overwhelming. The man spun toward me, his dagger dripping with the lifeblood of the other he had killed, his emotions were all wrong. He had just killed a man yet he was filled with a manic glee and anticipation, not a single bit of remorse resided in the man who stood before me. He spat in rage as he ran at me, raising his dagger, “You're interfering girl! But, two sacrifices are better than one.” I scrabbled for my staff and barely got it in front of me as the man dove at me. He knocked us to the ground his dagger slammed into the staff and bounced off the iron-hard wood. He pinned me down, straddling me. His eyes... his eyes showed that madness I could feel inside him. There was a dark coiled snake, seeping into his sanity, taking hold. It stank of black magics to me. As he tried to force his dagger down, I slammed a knee upward. He was able to shift, so I didn't strike his crotch, but that was enough to unbalance him. I twisted and pushed with all my might and rolled away as he fell to the side. Moving my staff to a defensive position, I got to my feet. Why were the Goddess damned brothers not assisting? Were they trying to get me killed? Was this how they were going to return the balance since I wasn't supposed to possess my Lady's feather? I screamed in agony as I felt something thrust itself into our world. The malice, rage, pain, suffering and pure evil had me staggering and going to a knee. Then whatever it was, bellowed out in agonized bliss. The screams of a thousand tortured souls. It was huge whatever it was, and it carried an evil I couldn't comprehend. I could feel my eyes and ears start to bleed from the sound. I gasped. It was threatening to take me into that suffering, like a tidal wave washing over a tiny pebble. The man slashed at me, and on reflex, I deflected it with a whistling sweep of my staff. He screamed in frustration, and his bright point of red hot emotion pulled me back to my senses as my first response was to take that emotion from him and give him serenity. My chest was on fire as my talisman flared brightly. I would not give this man peace, he was trying to kill me, and enslave his tortured niece. I jabbed at him to gain some separation. He screamed, spittle flying from his mouth as he demanded, “Kill her!” There was that bellow again that almost made me fall over from the sheer impact of the agony and rage it contained. I tightened my grip on the staff, and it started to glow white with power, it was as if it felt my emotions and was reacting. I spun back at the man, pushing all of my being into the warm woven wood, and slashed at the man. His dagger shattered on my staff, and with a cracking wet sound, his arm followed suit. I spun the other way and jabbed at him as the ground behind me shook, something was coming for me as he had demanded. The end of my staff shattered his rib cage and struck his heart. I just stared in horror. I had just killed a man. I didn't have time for my shock and repulsion to fully register as I heard what sounded like a dozen hoofbeats charging my way, as that unearthly bellow of a thousand tortured voices washed over me, trying to convince me just to roll over and die. I spun back, my staff almost burned in my hands as the talisman tried to consume the emotions I was being assaulted with. That is when I saw it – a creature from the most twisted of nightmares. It's very flesh seemed to ripple and bleed red and black ichor. Blood and brimstone lit up the cracks in its flesh, and its eyes burned with a rage and suffering that I couldn't fathom had I lived a hundred lifetimes. It reared up on its hind legs and windmilled its nightmarish hooves in the air. Coming down on top of the raging fire. Sparks and embers flying everywhere. I could smell it's rotten and fetid flesh burning along with a sulfurous smell that made me want to gag. I couldn't move while I watched in morbid fascination as it dipped its head, it's mane aflame as it struck the logs of the fire like an enemy, with the huge black, gnarled horn upon its head. The fire and ground beneath it exploded upon the impact which shook the ground. Shrapnel went flying, embedding into nearby trees as a flaming log landed in the underbrush and ignited. The flames started spreading as I stared at the beast in shock. I was gazing upon a demonic unicorn that was more terrifying than anything that has ever walked upon this Earth. And I was shocked at my initial reaction. It was... beautiful. Jacob spoke from nearby, “Belle, meet Illiya, the one we wished you to meet. Robyn is in London until nightfall tomorrow. Our business is now complete.” I glanced over to see the brothers walking away. What the hell? The beast snapped its head toward me and bellowed again, then charged. I had to lean into the wall of rage and suffering it pushed in front of it as it came. I gritted my teeth against the physical and mental onslaught. I started to pour my very soul into the staff, knowing it not to be enough, but I wasn't going out like this. Tricked by the Scales. But then I felt it. Inside the beast, there was a light, so very dim, at the core of the monster. It was so faint, but so pure. It had such beauty and innocence, and it was so tortured and afraid, but it was there... SHE was there. My eyes watered at the thought. For all the living hell this poor girl had suffered because of the maniacal thirst for power that five men had, she was still in there somewhere. The beast hadn't taken her completely. How much strength must the girl have to have persevered for so very long? I found myself instinctively reaching for that light, with a need to protect it. It was the hope in the darkness, and I would not allow it to be extinguished. As the beast bore down upon me, the forest shaking under its hooves, I reached for all that pain, all that suffering, all that rage from the thousands of tortured souls bound to her. I reached through it all to her own suffering, and I screamed to the Goddess, in more pain than I thought capable of feeling as I tore it all away and into me as I yelled, “Be at peace!” The power, the rage, it felt so right, so seductive. I could hold onto all of this and watch the world burn around me! I would be unstoppable, and mankind would tremble at my feet as I tore their souls from them and ate their beating hearts. I could twist them to my will and... I heard a small sob in my head. I blinked and reached out for the dim, pure ligh
t. It was so, warm, so... what had I been thinking? I reached for that light and said softly, “Be at peace.” I shook, realizing how much I wanted to become that evil. The promise of hope from the girl inside the beast had pulled me from it. Lifting my head, I looked up at the charging beast who had slowed, looking confused as it approached. I smiled at it and said one last time as it came to a halt under my hand, “Be at peace, little one. I will protect you.” It looked and felt afraid, as I realized its hide was a manifestation of the tortured souls that were bound to it. It bellowed at me, trying to scare me, so it didn't have to realize what it was feeling. My hair was blown back, and drops of spittle, blood, and sulfurous smelling ichor splattered my face. I sighed and stroked it's muzzle and laid my forehead against it to share the tranquility flowing from me, as the talisman finally caught up and consumed the raw evil that had infused me. As the beast collapsed to the ground, I laid down with it to keep in contact with it. I held it as the very chains that bound it, that kept it in constant emotional agony, melted away. As the huge demonic beast faded away, it left behind the small and fragile girl, whom it had imprisoned, behind it. A young woman of such beauty she took my breath away, even covered in the blood and ichor. She cried, and I held her, knowing I would hold her for all of time if it would grant her the serenity she had been denied for so long. She just desperately wrapped her arms around me and sobbed until she was able to finally drift into the sleep she had been denied since she first left the mortal coil. And I wept for her as the forest burned around us. *** We didn't sit long like that in the smoke filled clearing. The waning gibbous moon was at its full height, and I could see the scene around us before I looked back down at the peacefully sleeping maiden in my arms. I quickly wiped the sulfurous ichor and blood off of her porcelain skin with a cloth and water from my pack. Then I dressed her in my spare peasant's dress and wrapped my blanket from my bedroll around her. After staring long and hard at the man I had killed, her uncle. I knew there was nothing I could do to give him and the other man dignity in death, the fire was getting closer, spreading in through the underbrush, and would consume them soon. I prayed to the Goddess of my Lady, even though I knew it pointless as the souls of these men were already condemned to the underworld. Was it the Christian Hell? I pondered the question as I hefted the sleeping girl into my arms as I started coughing from the thickening smoke. Then I stumbled out of the clearing, heading upwind, away from the growing fire. Moving up a steep grade toward a rock outcropping by a ridge. Once we were at a safe distance and I couldn't carry her any longer, I settled us in the shelter of the outcropping. I sat with my back to the stones with the girl's head in my lap, pulling her nightmares from her, and I just watched the world below us burn.

  Chapter 7 – Illiya of Bucuresti

  When she awoke the next morning, the flames below had virtually extinguished themselves, as the wind had died down to a gentle breeze and the forest was green and wet. Only a few acres had been charred, looking like a black and grey blemish on the green canopy below. The small campfire I had made to keep her warm was nothing but burning embers due to lack of stoking. I must have fallen asleep. I woke when she stirred, like we were in tune with each other. I looked down into crystal blue eyes, her dark hair a stark contrast to her pale skin. She blinked up at me and then sat up suddenly, scrabbling back until she was against the granite overhang. She was scared and confused. I didn't need to taste her emotions to know that. Then she held up her hand in front of her, and the fear faded away as she just stared at it in disbelief, flexing her fingers. Her voice was a rich honey tone as she spoke in an eastern European language, possibly Romanian, “Cum este posibil acest lucru? Este coșmarul în cele din urmă de peste?” Her tone was full of wonder and disbelief. I didn't understand her, but it was easy to postulate. I said softly, “It is alright. You're safe. I won't let anything happen to you.” Her head whipped up, and she locked her eyes on mine. The blue of her irises bled away to a burning red that started to smoke as her rage swelled inside her. She growled out in accented English her voice reverberating as if it was somehow multiplied, “Who are you? What do you want?” Her skin started darkening as her fear and rage swelled. I held a hand out toward her in an almost pleading gesture and said, “Be at peace. I will not hurt you.” I let peace and tranquility flow out of me as I braced myself for her rage to flow in to fill the void. I willed the talisman to consume it before it could overwhelm me like before. I was terrified of how good the evil felt inside me earlier, and would never let it hold sway over me like that again. I gritted my teeth as the smaller swell came into me, then it was gone, and her demon aspect had retreated back into her once again. She looked at me then her hand again, then smiled. It was a breathtaking smile which made the birdsong, deep in the forest which held me in rapture, pale in comparison. I felt suddenly very shy and vulnerable. She asked in wonder, “You did this? You chased the demon away? She is hiding, and I feel... at peace or the first time since...” She paled as she remembered her living nightmare, realizing it was all too real. I nodded and kept my hand out until she moved slightly forward, like a timid animal, then took my hand and I gently pulled her back to the warmth of the stones around the burning embers. She settled beside me, and I didn't want to let her go. With a herculean effort, I did and then clasped my hands together in my lap. “I'm Belle, of Locksley.” I unclasped my hands, and not knowing what to do with them, grabbed some of the wood I had gathered and prodded the embers to start the fire back up. She scrambled back, sheer terror hit me like a wall as her eyes started smoking again. I looked at her, and the fire then paled. I said quickly as I moved to her side, “It is just fire, not hellfire. It cannot harm you.” I was babbling, “Well it can burn you but that's the nature of fire, but it can't... it is just for warmth and.” She started to chuckle, at first with that monstrous tone, then it bled into the joy of a burbling brook as she said, laying a hand on my arm, “Belle... you're babbling. I just flashed back to the pit. I can't wrap my brain around the fact I'm no longer there.” The pit? Her hell? Is that what she called the underworld? I looked at her and couldn't help but smile. I glanced back down bashfully as she said, “I am Illiya of Bucuresti.” She took my hand between hers, and it ignited a fire in me that I didn't understand. With my other hand, I waved like a fool from my hip. I didn't trust my voice just then. She let go of me then stared at both sides of her hands and asked in wonder, “Am I finally free?” She paused and hesitated and almost spat out, “No, I can still feel her lurking inside of me, waiting for a chance to take me again.” I tilted my head and studied her. I was saddened by the insanity that threatened around the edges, how close had she come? Or had she stepped over that line long ago and was trying to find her way back now? I asked, “Her?” She said in a whisper as if she were afraid saying it would bring the beast back out, “The demon inside me. My... my own darkness manifested. Yth'Ical they called me because I, we, it... would not bow to the other demons. We just wanted to destroy, to bathe in the blood of those around us. We are one of the only demons who can give the others the true death of oblivion, and they feared us.” I heard myself asking, “Yth'Ical?” She whispered again, “Soul Reaper.” I reached up hesitantly and cupped her cheek, stroking it with my thumb and said, “You are here now. They cannot harm you. It cannot harm you.” She shook her head. “No, I can feel her hiding inside, slowly clawing to get out to... kill... you. To consume your soul to make her stronger.” I gave her a cocky smile to put her at ease though I wasn't as confident as I sounded. “I will not let her.” She looked at her hand as she leaned into the heat of my touch. “You? You did this? Chased her into hiding?” I just nodded dumbly and shrugged. Then she sat up again and looked around. “We are back in the mortal world? I felt something calling to me and chains wrapped around us and dragged us through a gateway. Then the chains were gone.” She looked over at me in horror as her eyes started smoking again, her rage bubbling up as she accused, “I saw you! Uncle Costin? You killed him!” She was starting to
convulse as her bones crackled and her body contorted, I pushed out calm and serenity to her as I tore the negative emotions from her, halting the change which had started. I watched in morbid fascination as her skin stopped rippling and a now frightened but calm looking Illiya stared at me. I shook my head and tried to explain. “He was the one who bound you with chains. He bound you to his will when he summoned you from the realm of demons. To bring him power and to do his bidding. He sacrificed a man to complete the binding and very nearly sacrificed me too. I simply defended myself.” I stared down at my hands. The hands which had killed a man. Then I whispered in a plea, hoping I had done the right thing, “Did the chains not release you when he died?” She hesitated, I saw her teetering on that fragile ledge of sanity. Her eyes flicked back and forth like she was replaying the incident in her mind. It made me wonder how much she remembers when her demon aspect consumes her. It was heart-rending to think she was conscious of everything she did while suffering her eternal damnation. She said in a small voice, “Uncle Costin. He meant to use me? To use the beast I had become?” Then she deflated and said to the world, “I'm so very tired.” Then she turned to the side and proceeded to throw up. I winced at the smell of brimstone, rotted meat, and blood. Then grabbed my canteen from my pack and handed it to her. She drank greedily. Then said as she gasped for air after emptying almost half of it. “That's so good. There is nothing to sate your undying thirst in the pit, except the blood of the others.” Then her eyes lit up like a child's as she whipped her head toward me, completely forgetting about the death of her relative, and asked hopefully. “Have you any... food, Belle?” The half-mad, hopeful look on her face made me grin. If food would make her happy, then this I could do for that smile of hers. I nodded and dug in my pack for the meager offerings I had there. Then I watched in fascination as she ate almost everything I had. Clawing at it and stuffing it into her mouth like an animal. It was only stale smoked meats and dried berries and nuts, but the look of pure bliss on her face told the sad tale that to her, it was the finest of meals... fit for a queen. She paused and looked up from two fistfuls of food, then looked embarrassed and held one fistful of dried fruit out toward me. I held up my hands and smiled at her, assuring her, “No, you go ahead.” She blushed and looked at her hands and the food. She sat back in embarrassment, crossed her legs, and laid the food on her lap and then ate daintily, looking prim and proper. She took a single piece of chicken jerky fastidiously between two fingers and took a nibble. We both burst out into a fit of giggles. But then I moved to her in concern when her giggles turned to manic laughter, then tears, and finally the tears into sobs which convulsed her entire body. I pulled her to me, and she buried her face in my shoulder, and I just held her, stroking her hair as she cried. I would not take that from her. Those tears were hers, so I pushed back the compulsion to consume the flurry of emotions in her. She needed to heal. I know not how long we sat there like that, but she finally got it out of her system and pulled herself under control. She looked up at me, then wiped her tears as she pulled back. “Sorry. I can't seem to control myself.” She looked at her hands in wonder again and added, “I can't believe I am myself again.” Then she darkened and said quietly as if it would pull the beast forth, “But I can feel her inside me, looking for a chance to get out.” She looked up at me suddenly and cocked her head and said in that same tone of wonder, “She fears you. The promise of hope that you extend to her... us... me.” I smiled and stood, offering a hand. “I don't know about hope, all I can offer is peace, and as she is just a part of you, I offer that peace to her too. We all harbor darkness inside of us, but it is just one aspect of what makes us whole. It is our decisions that define us, not our capacity for good or evil. We make a choice to be one or the other, and most of us choose something in between.” She gave a rueful smile as I went about extinguishing our fire with sand and dirt. “You sound as if you have made those decisions yourself.” I shuddered at the memory of how good the rage and evil felt swelling inside me, and how I have denied it. I just nodded, and she must have seen something in my eyes because her smile vanished and she looked almost sympathetic. I glanced at her as I started rolling my bedroll and readying my pack for travel. We had a day and a half journey to complete by nightfall if I were to catch up with Lady Locksley in London. I shook my head, it was just like all the other times when I learned about her location, or others like her. It seemed like something was preventing my meeting up with them. I froze, was it Jacob and Wilhelm? I felt as if I had somehow been tricked by them this whole time, especially when they threw me under the wagon, so to speak. Then to keep their word in spirit, but to give me a timetable I could most likely not meet? My eyes narrowed. This was all just part of that game they spoke of wasn't it. I huffed in exasperation. They could underestimate me at their own folly, for I would make that deadline. I looked to Illiya. “Will you travel with me? I can keep your rage at bay, but I must be in London by nightfall. I have quested for so many years, and I have a chance to finally keep my word.” She looked at me then the forest below, then again at her hands. She had a fascination with them, and my heart broke at the realization why. She had been locked in that nightmare form for years in that endless torment, she had not been human in that hoofed form. Then she nodded and said, “I still cannot believe I am back in the mortal world, and... human, again. I would travel to the ends of the world with you, Belle of Locksley. How far is London? I had dreamed of travel to the great cities of the west, like Paris and London when I was young. How will we cross the Channel in time?” I studied her as I supplied, “We are in Britain now. London is around thirty-five miles to the south.” She asked wistfully, “I'm in, Britan?” Then hesitated before asking, “Have you a...” She didn't want to say it, and I understood exactly why. I finished for her, “A horse? No.” Her eyebrows arched, “And we are to travel thirty-five miles by nightfall?” She smiled widely and almost fondly as she provided, “And here I believed I was the mad one.” I shook my head as I marveled at that smile which was warming me in some embarrassing ways. It seemed I was severely attracted to the woman. Then I explained, “There are these frustrating men who believe they can prevent me from finishing my quest by giving me an impossible timeline. I will prove them wrong. They do not know what a driving force this is in my life, and I will not fail.” Then she got a little bashful as she looked down and said without doubt in her voice, “You... are my miracle. So I've no doubt you can accomplish yet another.” Heat bloomed on my cheeks, and I tried not to look at her then had a thought. “The air is chill, and you've naught but a dress. Take my cloak.” I had this driving desire to protect her and keep her comfortable. She shook her head sadly and reached out, and I felt the unnatural warmth of her hand on my cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned into the contact as she said, “The fires of hell burn within me, I have no need of your cloak.” Then she added quickly, “But it was very selfless for you to offer... Belle.” I stepped back and swallowed, pushing back my desire for this delicate creature. I smirked at her then said, “Shall we be about it then?” She nodded once and took hold of a bit of my cloak, and we started jogging down toward the burned out forest below, and to my destiny in the south.