by Liam Reese
Joranas jumped when he turned to see three of the children staring at him. Each had paused just a few feet from where he stood and examined him with large, green eyes. One was a girl and Joranas felt something heavy in his belly as he looked at her. She had long, light brown hair that shone in the sunlight framing a face that he found intensely beautiful. Her small nose turned up at the tip and the dusting of freckles that garnished it migrated over her cheeks delicately. She was tall and thin but his eyes were drawn to the obvious signs of her gender and he felt his cheeks burn as he stared openly at her. One of her companions, a boy who might have been of a similar age to Joranas, pointed, muttering something to the other two. Joranas frowned as his finger was not pointed at himself but at something behind him. Turning, Joranas saw to his wonder, the building he had been looking at was alive with color. The carvings he had seen had been faithfully and meticulously painted to resemble real life. He ran his eyes over the frescoes, seeing far more now than he had when they were monochrome.
Joranas pulled his attention back to the girl who wore a little smile as she studied the scene. She looked so real, as if he could reach out and touch her bare shoulder, feeling the softness of her perfect skin…
He reached out but, just before his fingers were to touch her, they all turned their heads. Joranas looked to see everyone was staring in the same direction, some pointing but all with expressions of either fear or concern on their faces.
Something bright flashed in the distance and he saw some people open their mouths, screams he, thankfully, could not hear echoing from the stonework. Further flashes came from the same direction they all faced, followed by a glowing orb that smashed into one of the buildings, melting through the stone with sickening ease. More of the glowing orbs appeared, as if it was raining them, to melt through the stonework and set fire to the inhabitants and their possessions.
They ran then, fear carved on their faces as their feet pounded past him. Joranas could only watch as the girl he had been about to touch fell to the ground before him, hair and clothing alight as her friends tried in vain to put the flames out. Her back arched, limbs thrashing in agony as she burned alive, her skin turning black as he watched. She died seconds later, adults and children alike running past them as more people emerged from buildings on fire, thrashing and screaming in a mad attempt to stop their hair burning.
Pain and fear welled up in Joranas’ chest as he watched the city burn before him. The square he faced was filled with corpses, all burned horribly. Flames licked from the buildings as anything flammable caught light and still the rain of glowing, purple orbs came.
Though blurred by his tears he saw another figure walking slowly through the square. Joranas rubbed the water from his eyes to see a woman, beautiful and terrible, making her way almost casually through the carnage. Joranas could see she was nothing like the people who had lived here as she was at least twice the size of any of them and looked completely different.
Her body was a voluptuous ode to femininity, strong and supple with taut muscles and long, amber hair. Large, round eyes as blue-green as the ocean gleamed with savage delight as she advanced making strange feelings erupt inside Joranas at the same time as revulsion washed through him. Her skin was a mottled red-pink color, darker in some places than others but what struck Joranas more than anything was that she was utterly naked. Nothing was covered with even the tiniest scrap of clothing and when the wind shifted, curling smoke and flame around, her hair blew back, revealing her heavy chest as well. She looked as if her only reason for existing was to breed.
She was also the one responsible for massacring the city.
Round arms raised and fingers cupped she brought forth wave upon wave of the purple orbs, launching them in all directions as she floated several feet from the ground. The expression on her face was one of vile satisfaction as she casually slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.
Joranas did not want to see any more but he could not turn away, unable to close his eyes even though his tears blurred the scene. Eventually the woman, whatever she had been, passed through the square, naked buttocks on display.
Wherever he looked, men, women and children lay dead, their clothing and hair burned horribly and their faces beyond all recognition. Joranas slumped to his knees, falling sideways as the city burned around him. Thick, cloying smoke seared the back of his nose and throat as flames licked from the tall buildings around him.
Finally able to close his eyes, Joranas sat on the cobbled ground and wept for the loss of this graceful, loving and happy people. Something rocked his body and called his name. He looked up to see the concerned face of Whint staring back at him.
“Joranas?” The dark skinned man shouted. “Wake up!”
Whint shook him again, his grip tight and painful on Joranas’ shoulders and making Joranas’ head roll limply.
He came back slowly, as if waking from a stupor, the sights and sounds of the city being destroyed fading as he focused on Whint. The tall man knelt and looked into his eyes.
“What happened?” He asked in concern.
“I-I can’t,” Joranas said, his voice breaking. “It was horrible.”
Whint frowned but gathered Joranas in his strong arms and carried him back to their makeshift home.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Besmir opened his eyes to the silver light of pre-dawn. Arteera slept beside him with Cal Trin and Founsalla Pira a little way off. A low fire smoldered at the center of their small camp with Zaynorth feeding a few thin branches into it as he brewed some tea. Sitting up gently to not wake his wife, Besmir rolled from his blankets and went to the fire, holding his hands out to it to ward off the night’s cold.
Zaynorth looked up, his lined face filled with surprised concern.
“It’s about time you woke,” he said.
“Why? It’s early morning,” Besmir replied with a frown.
“You’ve been asleep for three days, lad,” Zaynorth told him. “Arteera has been out of her mind with worry.”
Besmir tried to think, to recall what had happened. He had been hunting, sending his thoughts out with the daasnu and…
“What’s wrong?” Zaynorth demanded.
Besmir couldn’t get his breath and he felt the blood drain from his face as his journey and meeting with the Gods came to him.
I can’t tell them what they expect me to do.
“I just feel a bit sick,” Besmir lied. “Got any of that tea to spare?”
“Of course,” the old mage said. “Do you recall what you usually call this, though?”
Besmir smiled despite the memories flowing around his head.
“I call it horse urine,” he said, “and I stand by the name, but you swear it makes you immortal so it might cure my sickness.”
“I never said it makes me immortal,” Zaynorth grumbled defensively. “I merely stated I am never unwell due to its healing properties.”
Zaynorth poured a generous amount of the tea into a metal cup and passed it to his king. Besmir blew on it, sipping the bitter liquid and wincing.
“Yes, definitely something a horse would pass,” he murmured with a smile.
“There is only one way you could actually know that, you realize?” Zaynorth asked with one eyebrow raised.
Besmir laughed, sipping more of the dire brew. Something grabbed him from behind sending half his cup hissing into the fire.
“What...?” He cried.
Arteera wrapped her arms around him, squeezing as hard as she could as Zaynorth chuckled.
“Besmir!” She warbled. “What happened? Why have you been asleep for days?”
“I don’t know,” he said, a pang of guilt at lying to her spiking through him. “I suppose I must have been exhausted from all the riding and then hunting each evening. It was quite tiring sending my thoughts out that far.”
“Well don’t do it again!” His wife ordered, squeezing in beside him.
“We have to eat, love,” Besmir said.
“We have been,” she said. “Teghime has been bringing us meat.”
Besmir felt his eyebrows shoot up as he looked at his wife to see if she were mocking him. Arteera laughed at his expression.
“Really,” she said. “She must have known you were unwell as she began dropping animals at your feet the first night.”
Besmir looked at the large cat, curled in a bundle with the other daasnu, head on the rump of another cat and lightly snoring. He made a silent promise to himself to take her back to Gazluth with him when this was over. Maybe start a breeding program so others could benefit from the faithful creatures. Teghime opened her eyes, staring at him as if she knew he was thinking about her. She raised her head, yawned and tucked it back down behind the other cat’s back. Besmir laughed.
“If only I felt that carefree,” he said.
“Will you be able to ride?” Zaynorth asked as Founsalla Pira rose, nodding to Besmir without a word.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Besmir said.
My body is anyway.
They broke camp after a brief breakfast, each member well rested after a three day break. Besmir’s mind rolled over his strange journey as they rode for Ludavar. He could not understand why he had been kept asleep for three days when his trip had been so brief, no more than a few hours. Was this the Gods’ way of hindering him again as Cathantor had tried to do in Hell. If so, why?
He felt Teghime slow beneath him and came out of his thoughts to stare down into the valley he had seen when Cathantor took him. The massive, dead forest was the same bleached wood stretching off for miles and the city, Ludavar, stood beside it, immense and labyrinthine.
Joranas is in there.
That was what Cathantor had told him before flying up into the night sky and on to the endless fields of the afterlife.
“By the Gods, it’s immense!” Pira said as he reigned his horse in with his good arm.
The four people stared down at the sprawling mass of buildings and streets, each realizing what an immense task still faced them inside that city until Besmir spotted something.
“Look!” He yelled, pointing.
In the distance, barely visible through the boiling heat haze, a lone figure walked towards the gate leading into the city. It was impossible to tell who it was at this distance but Besmir guessed it to only be Porantillia in her stolen Keluse body.
If I hadn’t been asleep for three days…
The thought came to Besmir as he watched Porantillia enter the city, heading for his son. He knew why Cathantor and the other Gods had kept him asleep, so she could enter the city first.
But that just puts Joranas in more danger.
Besmir’s fist clenched on the reins and he gritted his teeth as he realized the Gods had been interfering again. His companions mistook his rage for anger at Porantillia but he did not bother to correct them as he turned Teghime and rode her down into the valley, galloping towards Ludavar in pursuit.
The walls loomed, taller than any he had seen as he approached, slowing the gigantic cat to fully appreciate the scale of the city. Towers, taller than he had ever seen, grew into the sky like dark fingers, dark holes he assumed to be windows dotting the sides.
“How did they even build these so tall?” Pira asked in wonder as he drew alongside on his puffing, heaving horse.
“I have no idea,” Besmir said.
Arteera was paler than usual when he looked, her eyes, roving over the large buildings, wider than usual and he knew she was scared. Besmir steered Teghime over beside her daasnu.
“He’s in there,” he said. “Our little Joranas.”
Arteera nodded.
“So is she,” she spat.
Besmir realize he had read his wife wrong. She was not frightened at all, this was rage and hate aimed at Porantillia he could see. His heart swelled with pride and love for the gentle seamstress he had married. He remembered, years ago before they were married, when he had been in need of an army to overthrow Tiernon, he had said that no force on earth was as determined and outright threatening as a mother whose young are threatened. The expression on Arteera’s face was a perfect example of that. Given half a chance he thought she would rip Porantillia apart with teeth and nails if she could.
“What are you smiling at?” She demanded.
“You look ready to punch your way to the middle of this place,” he said.
Arteera grinned at him and he grinned back, turning Teghime to enter Ludavar.
Tiernon’s mind whirled like a draining pool. Unable to focus on any one thought he rolled over and over, endlessly reliving the horrors he had visited upon others.
Collise had no choice but to do so too. She watched as he tortured, maimed and killed people time and time again, both of them screaming in the madness. Of all the overriding thoughts that came to her, one stood out over all others.
It was T’noch! He made me do it!
The more she heard this thought cast out by her father, the more she wanted to find out the truth. With a huge effort of her young will, Collise managed to force her mind back through his thoughts and memories, traveling back to some of his earliest recollections.
He was with his brother, Joranas, and another boy called Zaynorth. His brother and Zaynorth were fast friends, not including Tiernon in much of what they got up to around the palace and Tiernon was left on his own for much of the time. Today, he felt good as they were letting him tag along. Being the younger brother to the crown prince was not always the easiest of lives but Tiernon loved Joranas and so he accepted his lot in life.
They took Tiernon to a part of the palace forbidden to them, an area where the women of the palace bathed, and climbed high onto the roof, cajoling and berating Tiernon until he joined them. Once there, Joranas made sure he was quiet as they peered through a crack in the wall at the women far below. When Tiernon came to take his turn he felt a wave of fatigue and heard Zaynorth muttering to him, his words unclear. When he was roughly woken by a guard later, he was hauled down a ladder and brought before his father who lectured him on not spying on women as they bathed. He could tell his father was disappointed, if not disgusted by the actions of a prince but something inside him stopped him from speaking out against Joranas.
Collise rummaged through the vaults of her father’s mind, finding a few more occurrences of her uncle and his friend putting her father into awkward and embarrassing situations for their own amusement. More often they just abandoned him for other entertainments, not wishing him to tag along and the young Tiernon spent much of his time reading or studying.
Older, his brother had met Rhianne and fallen madly for her, germinating a seed of jealousy and hate in Tiernon’s heart for them both.
Why should they be happy when I am not?
His brother took her as wife and they had a child.
That is King Besmir! Collise thought in amazement.
An unpleasant plan had started in Tiernon’s mind, Collise saw the first tendrils of his idea to take the throne from his brother at their wedding. He would threaten the woman and the child as he could not best Joranas, especially with Zaynorth at his side.
Collise saw his plan succeed and he was crowned King of Gazluth when their father died, his brother in exile to afar land. Yet even though he was gone, Tiernon could not put thoughts of his brother and nephew from his mind. If they were to return he might lose the throne, so he ordered assassins to find and kill them all.
Collise drew back, unwilling to see any more. Her father had been evil in the beginning, letting hate and jealousy overtake him until he had his brother killed.
But King Besmir lived, he came back.
And he killed me. Tiernon’s voice echoed in her thoughts, more rational and sane than she had heard it before.
Collise gasped inside her mind at his words but listened as her father continued.
You’re cor
rect, I should not have let some childish pranks affect me as they did but look to your own childhood of exile and exclusion and tell me you’re not similar.
Collise felt a wash of shame at his words, she had burned an innocent woman for saying a few mean words while her father had endured it for years from his own brother.
Keluse could feel the anticipation as Porantillia strode through the deserted streets of the dark city. They were heading for something important to the Goddess, the body she kept thinking about, but Keluse was plagued by a sense of foreboding. Something was about to happen and even though Porantillia thought she was going to leave Keluse’s body for this new one, Keluse had no idea whether she would survive the process.
Porantillia marched past buildings that had partially collapsed, recalling the time, centuries before, when she had come here to destroy them. Keluse saw the Goddess launching orbs of pure, raw energy at the city burning women and children alike.
All because of your jealousy. Keluse spat.
We have been through this, thee and I. Porantillia thought, sighing. I do this to correct a wrong. To erase the flawed life created by Gratallach’s putrid offspring and begin again.
You’re lying to yourself. Admit it. This is pure revenge because he took another. Well it happens! Get over it now.
Once I have erased the mistakes, it will never happen again. Porantillia insisted. None again will feel the agony of betrayal.
You will. Keluse thought quietly. Unless you kill yourself as well, you are going to lose in this plan as his betrayal will still haunt you forever.
That gave Porantillia pause, Keluse realized. The Goddess actually listened to what she had to say, rather than ignoring her words.
They marched on, Porantillia ignorant of Keluse’s weariness and pain, past buildings that had holes melted through the walls. Porantillia’s orbs had gone through solid rock and Keluse shuddered at the thought of the fear and pain it must have caused.
The memory flashed into Porantillia’s mind as soon as Keluse thought of it and she watched as the Goddess had made her way through the city, floating over the dead and burning corpses with a sick sense of glee in her.