by Emma Glass
“Yes. The manifestation of the amulet! You remember. I tried so hard to make contact with you before, only to fail. That was the day I explained the truth—you were a witch! As best as time allowed, I planted my greatest lessons into your subconscious. I mentored you! Cultivated you! All so you could become so much more…”
I struggled with her words—but I realized that Tzavos Tzovac spoke the truth.
“All those impossible things I can do…”
“I imparted such instincts upon you, yes. The power to break beyond the limitations of the archetype system that I once designed… a way to look at the magic underlying the world, and to bend it to your will. The world doesn’t need a powerful witch, Clara Blackwell. It needs a clever one.”
“But then… what did I actually do?”
“I gave you the knowledge. You had to find the tools. In a world that only knew to use a shovel as a bludgeoning tool—my child, I taught you how to dig the earth…”
“Then… did I do everything right, Tzavos?”
She waved her rod forwards. “See for yourself!”
The abyss between worlds rapidly roared back to life. I held an arm protectively over my face as colours spun and gusts churned, threatening to eclipse me.
“No, Clara,” Tzavos encouraged me. “Marvel at it.”
Slowly, I lowered the limb. I can see it. It’s so… beautiful. I’ve seen this a few times already, but right now? This place is so much better than ever…
“You’ve done so well, my child. Everything has aligned in defiance of the darkness that reaches ever closer! Here, you stand poised to oppose everything you’ve ever feared. The deaths of your friends. The destruction of the worlds. The end of reality. Are you prepared to take the final step? Are you ready, Clara Blackwell, to become the witch who saved the worlds?”
I felt stronger than ever before. I felt prepared.
“I am, Tzavos. I’m ready to face the Calamity.”
The bohemian rags of Tzavos Tzovac—more of a cloak, I could see now, billowed heavily at my side. The way that the abyssal winds caught it, the ancient cloak protectively whipped around me. It felt leathery to the touch, more like protective wings keeping me safe. An angel.
“I have to warn you, Clara Blackwell…” Tzavos fought back the roaring spectrum of colour with her ancient cloak. Seeing the powerful witch like this—as less of a doting old grandmother, and more of an indomitable spirit—inspired a powerful confidence in me.
“…This final step! It might be the hardest one you have taken,” Tzavos shouted over the wind. “Your destiny may ask you to sacrifice more than you can imagine! Remember that the fate of the worlds rests in your hands… know that I have prepared you as best I can. You and I are one, Clara. I offer you my strength, as yours becomes mine…!”
“I understand!” I shouted to her. “I’m ready!”
She nodded, watching me gravely. I held the gravity of her glowing stare, and I understood.
Right then, Tzavos Tzovac was not merely the kind old woman who guided me from my dreams since when I first met Elliott Craven. She was so much more. As one of the Sanguine Ones, Tzavos was a progenitor for the entirety of vampiric civilization. Her greatness transcended even that; as one of the three ancient lords of Seven Portals, the witch practically stood as the godmother of present-day magic.
Svetlana Lovrić and Lorelei Craven once spearheaded a revolution of magical innovation that changed the world; their groundwork was the legacy of this single woman.
And Tzavos never looked quite as formidable to me as she did right then. I stared at her with reverie and wonder, basking in her might. There was no questioning any of it. I completely believed she was the guardian of my amulet—a sacrifice willingly made so that she could live to stop the destruction of the world, or enable another to fight it.
Darkness burst through the colours, reaching for us—but I didn’t fear it. This was what I was meant to do. I was here to be whatever I needed to, if it halted the Calamity.
“Face your fate, Clara Blackwell…”
Chapter 19
Elliott
In retrospect, it is not difficult to see why they allowed me to take a leadership position. But it took a while to work it all out. There were, after all, several highly extenuating circumstances in place here.
Mattias Blackburn, de facto voice of reason, was dead.
In Akachi Azuzi’s most ambitious dreams, Mattias was swept away, paving for his takeover of the council. Sadly for him, and luckily for us, Akachi fell first. In a cruel twist of fate, his flesh was the anchor for the sorceress who once tried to steal Clara away. A part of me hoped Akachi was still in there, somewhere… but if that was correct, it meant my old enemy could come roaring back.
Not a pleasing thought, that one. But I would prefer his company to Sabine and her self-righteous insanity.
As for his power-driven, living counterpart…
Every step of Valentine Vasiliev was a step taken only with kicking and screaming. Naturally, the proud elder let none of us see that side of her on the outside. She might as well have. The trepidation in her thousand-yard stare was off the charts. Her body language exposed fear, doubt, and a great apprehension to continue onwards. I see. You want want no part of this—and the ‘idiot Lord Craven’ is willing to be the one marching first, why not let him be the shield? I suppose I can see the logic, though it’s unbecoming of you…
Her eye haughtily slid towards me. I turned away.
Neither Chandra Song nor Eyes-Like-Fire were fit to be the authority here, though that was nothing personal. One was content to bathe in the latest breakthroughs of comfort and luxury; the other eschewed such things to spend every available moment. Neither particularly liked responding to a convening of the Council of the Eight Holds—and neither were shy about that sentiment.
And Ooktuk Krum? Who knew what he thought. This was the most active I’d seen him since I was a small child, made to sit in on the occasional meetings at our castle.
That left one final possibility… Svetlana Lovrić.
* * *
Faint green light glowed from beneath the stone tiles. It was the only available visibility—this darkness was an unnatural one, to our relatively faultless night-vision eyes.
This light ominously bathed our faces in black shadow. Enhanced by our sharp facial contours, we stayed on edge, the harshest angles of our expressions highlighted in green accentuation. Impenetrable blackness covered the rest. The result, frankly, made my allies look positively chilling.
Clever, I growled. Divide us. Separate us with fear.
Unsettled, I focused on the corridor instead.
I fully expected to run straight into a trap. Although it took every fiber of my being to not run straight in for her, I refused to be ensnared that quickly.
No. They need us, for some reason. Sabine imparted no sense of impending doom—only a ruse, carefully laid. I will not invite any further danger by bolting directly to my own demise…
It wound up being for the better that we took our time. This was no plain entryway, and it held curious secrets for those willing to tread carefully. I was willing to gather any possible details I could about what awaited at the end.
The others followed my lead. My sister walked on one side, and Svetlana at the other. The rest disorderly flanked us, with Valentine carefully strolling in the middle. We did our best to not look at each other, lest our confidence fall.
The path was far larger on the inside—that much was quite certain. But there was still little indication of where it ended. The corridor was the main path through something much bigger than we could have prepared ourselves for… The route itself did not change in any considerable way—the walls and floor were all the same, no matter where we treaded. As for the features on the walls? They were much less picky about such fleeting concepts as consistency.
There were windows sometimes. Mostly, they were just as blackened as the absence of light around us. In one particul
ar bend, they were brightly lit, though none of that light penetrated into our path.
I approached the glass.
As I studied the view, the others gathered around.
The window looked out onto a beautiful scene—a sort of atrium, rising high above us. Lines of wooden benches faced away from us, focusing on a raised dais in the front. Stained glass windows reached upwards, depicting a few curious figures in their mosaics, and gorgeous banners slid down the walls, trimmed with silver and gold. I peered in a little further—some sort of ritual had been abandoned on the table at the dais. Torches of magnificent fires in various colours roared, giving the only semblance of life.
“Hmm.” Eyes-Like-Fire placed a hand to my shoulder, peering over it to stare into the room beyond. Though her hand grasped only my cloak, her grip felt quite rougher than it should have—You’re so highly accustomed to the grip of handled weapons, your natural regeneration cannot keep up with the callouses… “What do you make of this, Elliott?”
I liked her. I liked Chandra too, but Eyes-Like-Fire had a natural disdain for gesturing. I knew I could be formal—to a fault—but I held a private admiration for anyone in a position of respect who dispensed with such things.
I tilted my face towards her. “Looks like a cathedral.”
“Cathedral?” She scrunched her nose. “What’s that?”
“I have seen pictures, in Clara’s world. Humans have a variety of Creation theories. Many feature a Creator. Here is an example of where one would worship such a being... You might see hundreds of humans congregate in such a place for prayer. Sometimes more.”
“Prayer?” Chandra leaned in as well.
“A form of communion with their Creator. They ask for blessings, for forgiveness, and for purpose in their lives. It seems to be a common trait among civilizations on Clara’s world. At least, as far as I can tell…”
Eyes-Like-Fire nodded. “We hold such rituals.”
“I forget. Your hold presents tributes and offerings to the stars. Your people sanctify their kills with reverence to life itself.” I nodded. “It is, to some extent, similar…”
“Such maintains the cycle,” she nodded sagely.
“Yes. A cycle of wasted trophies and spoiled meat,” the lord of the Wastes cut in. “The starving peoples of my hold would murder for what you let rot under the moon…”
Eyes-Like-Fire didn’t bite at the remark, although I felt Valentine had a point. “Our respect for nature balances the magic. Our beasts are more docile than others. Deadly, yes, but avoidable and less driven to kill us. Continue to battle nature as you already do—we, instead, enjoy peace.”
Svetlana wisely decided to stop the argument before it could escalate further. She turned to me. “Lord Craven, as you are so versed in humanity, tell me…”
I pricked my ear.
“You say that humanity always adopts such rituals…” She gazed over the scene with a keen eye. “Why, then?”
I noticed that the others—even Valentine—listened in. “Humans are cursed with fragile lifespans. Even at their very healthiest, they suffer lives so easily lost. We have the benefit of long existences. We can all afford to grow weary with the passing ages. But humankind is far too young to understand that burden. They ponder a spectrum of moral and philosophical quandaries instead.”
“Fascinating…” Svetlana murmured.
As I pulled away, I looked through the next window—only to spot something strange. I slid back to the first, then the second again, and marched right past the rest of them.
“Oh good,” Valentine snarked. “Another mad one.”
“Look at this,” I pointed. “See for yourselves.”
The others—except Nikki—followed my example. I left them to observe how each window increasingly tore apart the cathedral, leaving it in further states of ruin. Tiles laid torn up on the ground; pews sat shattered and rotting; tall tapestries hung tattered and blackened with age and mold.
Each of the six successive windows added a new layer of death and anguish to the beautiful interior. In the finale, the ceiling had fallen and broken apart the floor, revealing a scorched, reddened sky strikingly similar to our own.
“Stages of decay,” Svetlana noted curiously, she looked between them with a comfortable stroll. “Each one of these panes degrades the scene…”
“What does it mean?” Chandra whispered to me.
My eyes narrowed. “Not sure. It feels… incomplete.”
“What do you mean, Lord Craven?” Svetlana asked.
I glanced down the corridor. There, bathed in the green light, Nikki stood staring at the first pane; she’d never left.
“Lord Craven, have you perhaps forgotten somebody?” Valentine jeered. “Doesn’t the witch await us?”
“This is here for a reason,” I replied distantly.
“Yes. A distraction.”
“No, you fool,” I grunted at her. “A history.”
Pushing free from the other vampire lords, I made my way back to my sister. “You’ve been quiet for a long time,” I noticed. “What do you see, Nikki?”
She tilted her head. “It looks very inviting.”
Crossing my arms, I turned to reflect upon it with her. “This is your first time seeing one of these? You didn’t get the chance to study Clara’s world while you were there?”
“No,” she replied softly.
“You were there a few days…”
“And preoccupied with not burning alive,” she replied. “I tried to be a little more careful than you were.”
“You had the benefit of my prior experience.”
Nikki smirked, eyes still on the cathedral. “So what?”
I glanced at her briefly. Though the sinister green light exacerbated her features to a ghoulish degree, it also called attention to her complete fixation. “You are enjoying this, aren’t you?” I asked her. “This calls to you.”
“You know… I wonder sometimes.”
“About?” I lifted a brow.
She didn’t reply immediately. Instead, we reflected on the scene—though I felt impatient to continue.
Nikki opened her mouth to reply—but then something in her expression saddened. She tilted her head to the side. “That boy. What was his name?”
“The boy?”
“The human Clara knew. The one who helped you.”
That confused me. “What makes you ask?”
She turned from the window. “It’s not important.”
Nikki started to walk away. I grabbed her by the wrist, and she stopped right where she stood. She didn’t turn.
“His name was Peter,” I told her. “Peter Tatham.”
“Peter…” Nikki sighed. “I like that…”
Cogs moved in my head. “You said last night that there was more to the story, before you left the council. And this isn’t the first time you’ve asked me about him today…” I let go of my grip on her wrist—she stood still, facing away. “Nikki… is there something you want to tell me?”
My sister didn’t budge. Nor did she say a word.
I placed my hands on her shoulders. “You know, if you ever need to talk to me… you know that I’ll always—“
“Elliott?” Chandra’s voice trailed towards us. Her tone was hard to read—but, clearly, something had changed.
Clara?! For the briefest of moments, my hands lessened on Nikki’s shoulders. I felt a quick burst of shame, having my attention yanked away from this moment. Forgive me. But my little sister needs me right now. I’ll be right there…
Instinctively, I tried to tighten my grip—but she pulled away instead. “Nikki? What’s the matter?”
“I think they found her.” My sister turned back with a dull stare. The harrowing green light twinkled in her eyes, almost enough to convince me she was fine. But I couldn’t be certain; the blackness here hid her emotions from me.
“We can still talk about this—“
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Clara needs us
.”
Her boots thumping on the stone tiles, my sister barely glanced at the windows over the cathedral setting. For the first few seconds, I stood motionlessly in the corridor and stared after her. Something has broken you. But… what?
I glanced at the pane again, devoid of answers.
And then I trailed after her.
* * *
At the end, the chamber was astonishing to behold.
And it was nothing like the hallway we left behind.
Darkness rounded out the continuous edge around the circular room. So profound was the absence of light here, I wasn’t sure if the shadows were black walls… or an abyss. The round chamber was ringed along the edges by pillars. Far above, three panes of stained glass floated in an array of light and beauty, arranged separated from one another. Each one created majestic and indecipherable imagery; the individual shards shifted and ebbed slightly in place. I was left with the impression that this place breathed.
Maybe it did. We weren’t in our own reality anymore.
Meanwhile, the rounded tile floor, much more refined than the corridor we still barely stood in, stretched before us in a circle of glowing purple. The light slightly pulsated at shin level—like a faint, dull throb. Whatever we found here was magnificent and eerily stark.
By comparison, I couldn’t help feeling very, very small.
“Where… are we?” Chandra Song asked, enraptured.
“I think…” My eyes narrowed. “We are right where we need to be…”
“I’ve been here before,” Nikki remarked curiously.
“Yes,” I sighed with recognition. “We both have.”
Ooktuk Krum narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“It’s the High Tower of the Magisters,” I wistfully said. “A bastardized shadow of the real thing. But my sister and I have been to the real one several times now. Enough that we recognize this… twisted contortion of the place.”
“What does that mean? Why is it here?”
I watched my sister step forwards. “I don’t know.”