by T. A. Miles
Merran was determined to spite her. “Do you understand a Reach?” He asked Ersana, shouting to be heard over the crone and the water, which already lapped at his heels on the first steps of the stairwell.
Ersana nodded once. “Yes!” she said.
“Then help me Reach us to the balcony!”
Again Ersana nodded. She took Dacia’s hand and when she reached for Merran’s, he shook his head.
“I require both of mine.”
She settled to move closer and put a hand on his back. “Concentrate on the balcony, Dacia,” she instructed her daughter, who nearly shook with fear and with chill as the water rushing in cooled the still shrouded air. When Ersana said the girl’s name more firmly, she snapped alert and nodded her compliance.
That would have to suffice. Merran worked the Reach spell and noticed that while he did so, Ersana’s lips moved in an unheard incantation, which set the crystal around her own neck aglow.
The portal formed and moved quickly over them, bringing them up to the top of the chamber. They were ahead of the water for now. Merran ushered mother and daughter quickly toward the route he knew would begin to take them out. He’d spent much of his strength on fighting the crone. He could not perform a Reach out of the caves entirely. Not yet.
Ersana provided a solution. “The gateway back to my home should still be open. It sits in one of the side chambers.”
“Let’s go to it,” Merran said, following her lead.
As they rushed back the way he and Korsten had come earlier, he considered the downward slope of the path and how quickly the water would rush down it, once it had risen high enough. He wondered if he could cast a Barrier strong enough to hold it, simultaneously he considered Korsten’s idea; a Barrier that might be large enough and strong enough to hold back the wave the crone had summoned, though they could not be sure when it would strike and a Barrier could not hold indefinitely. They weakened gradually with distance from the caster and with time. No single mage could perform such a feat—a Barrier that could hold against the sea. There were four of them in Indhovan, but the gods only knew where Korsten had gone and for how long. Even so, the four of them would not be enough. It seemed likely that another city would fall.
He tried to rebuild some sense of optimism against the sense of dread that threatened to overcome him. He’d learned that more often than not such sensations were directly related to Foresight. That talent was not perfect foretelling, but it was often very accurate in its tone and what it suggested could happen, even without detail.
He was not accustomed to it being quite so immediate, but he could not deny the shattering of his hope in the moment he heard Ersana cry out in rage and disbelief.
“Mother!”
The woman rushed toward the base of the slope and the small chamber there. She held her arms out to her sides and looked to the ceiling. Roots covered it end to end. Merran had not noticed them when he and Korsten passed through before.
“Why?” Ersana demanded.
Dacia lingered in the space between her mother and Merran, who had stopped to observe Ersana’s outburst. The girl looked past him, where the crone’s mocking cackles resounded through the tunnel behind them. She was cold and trembling. It occurred to him as he watched her that Korsten would have been insisting that they do something, even if there was nothing to be done. He often prevailed through reckless determination, just as he had at Lilende. He had begun as a source of frustration to Merran, but quickly became an inspiration … and he loved him. He loved him selfishly and he knew that it would ultimately keep Korsten from him. He didn’t know when exactly his drive had become only to track and destroy demons so completely, but he did know that it was Korsten’s arrival that shifted the nature of his determination. He knew also that Ashwin had seen the flaw in it before him, and with due authority neutralized him long enough to prevent him behaving like a fool, all over his own selfishness.
He was turning away from others, leaving himself open only to one … one who included others, when he had no reason to and when it seemed a risk to. At this rate, Merran would isolate himself from Korsten as well. It sickened him that the thought which immediately followed was of Ashwin, and how Korsten would only grow closer to the elder’s openness and compassion.
“Master Merran….”
The girl’s voice, currently small, went almost unheard.
Merran looked at her.
“What can we do?” Dacia asked. Even in her fear, she was determined to carry on if given direction.
Korsten would have consoled her. Merran knew that he could not. Even in the youngest days he could remember, before he knew of war, he’d been poor at alleviating the pain of others. It seemed almost a mockery on the gods’ part that he should have Healing as a talent. He summoned the talent he’d always felt more naturally inclined to in Endurance and said to the girl, “We can get out of here, before the water takes us.” Looking to Ersana, who still stood flustered in her disbelief over the crone’s betrayal, he said. “Let’s keep moving.”
Ersana summoned her daughter to her with an extended hand and the three of them continued on foot.
Very little seemed to work against Serawe. Korsten seemed only to be incensing the demon the longer he put off her satiation. The demons around him were also getting restless, their borrowed blood more than likely stirring in response to their mistress’ frustration … or perhaps to Korsten’s. He couldn’t be certain whether or not he still held them enthrall. He’d attempted to Bind Serawe, but she broke loose almost immediately and he was forced to hastily cast Barrier. She drew back her arm and struck it harshly with her fist. She opened her hand for the second blow, stabbing through with fingers that had extended to claws. Korsten leaned back from their unnatural reach and summoned his own weapon again, whipping the narrow blade across her claws, severing more than one.
The demoness withdrew, a hiss of irritation and pain escaping her. In that moment, she was struck an invisible blow. Unprepared for it, she crumpled awkwardly onto her side. Korsten looked to the Release’s caster in the same moment Serawe pivoted her head toward Vlas and hissed once again, fangs baring themselves.
“Careful!” Korsten warned his fellow mage, and that was all the communication they had time for before Serawe rolled herself disjointedly onto all fours and sprang upward and off the cavern floor. From the ceiling, she laughed at them, her voice layering over itself and echoing throughout the chamber in a disturbing chorus.
The other demons drew suddenly alert to Vlas and set into motion toward him.
“Don’t!” Korsten shouted instinctively. This time, the beasts failed to listen. Vlas was shielding himself with a Barrier and Korsten took the moments Vlas’ quick thinking had afforded them to lure the demons back to him. He drew in a deep breath and steeled himself and his emotions, dropping himself into a state of calm and what he’d come to realize was also trust; trust in himself, trust in the Essence within him … his gifts from the gods and from his predecessor … and trust also in the demons. In these moments of Allurance, of seduction, and of promise, they belonged to one another … bound by blood’s calling, in a pitch the demons could not ignore and that connected Korsten to them as he spoke in a language that had no actual words. It was a sounding of emotions, primal and deep, causing a resonance within the very spirit. The Vadryn were greedy for it, and felt empowered by it. They stopped and turned toward him, crawling almost suppliantly over to where Korsten stood.
Above him on the ceiling, Serawe let loose a primal sound of her own, one of abject rage; rage over the lesser demons’ behavior and over her own response to Korsten’s Song. It was only her ancient being which enabled her to resist. In a fit of temper, the demoness summoned the blood from the basins to her. They shot toward the ceiling as if great trees had suddenly grown from the pools. The crimson pillars spread like a network of branches and vines across the rock overhead, mak
ing it red and wet. Serawe concealed herself within the spread.
“You will never leave here,” she promised. The words drifted erratically through the chamber as she moved, making her location difficult to descry.
A bolt of blood shot down from the ceiling, impaling one of the embodied demons surrounding Korsten. The body became wet and broke loosely apart, chunks of it traveling up the shaft of blood, along with the wispy trail of the demon in its natural state. Within moments, it was swallowed into the mass on the ceiling.
“I am going to keep you,” Serawe promised. “Forever.”
In the corner of Korsten’s vision, Vlas remained still but cast him a questioning look. Korsten found himself both glad of his presence and worried over it simultaneously. Vlas had a solid presence of mind and appeared well anchored within himself and his own rational senses. He was wary of the Vadryn, but not easily overcome by them—as no properly studied mage should have been. Still, there were several of the Vadryn present—one a Master—and Vlas was not a hunter. Korsten understood as it was happening that the fact had Vlas looking to him for direction. Korsten hovered amid indecision regarding his own actions already. He was even less certain how to direct his peer.
In spite of that, Korsten motioned with his hand that Vlas should stay still as he had been. Serawe seemed distracted enough with Korsten, regardless of Vlas’ prior attack. There was no need to change that just yet, especially as Korsten had no idea how well or for how long he would be able to hold the attention of all of the demons present.
Another of the lesser beasts was speared and taken up to the ceiling, peeled out of its vessel. Korsten knew this would only make Serawe stronger. He knew that prolonged working of Allurance would eventually exhaust him and deplete any effect he hoped to have on the Vadryn. He considered also the blood. By whatever means, it was all around him … flowing impossibly toward the demoness. If he couldn’t feel her power, he could certainly see it. It surrounded him.
But it wasn’t hers, he reminded himself. Not entirely.
His heart stumbled into a quicker rhythm while he stood still, realizing again that he was surrounded by blood … by demons encased in it as well as by flowing pillars of it on a sheet of it spanning across the ceiling. It should have been raining down onto him, but somehow the demoness had contained it … netted it in a fleshy film that glistened with the movement of blood and of her. Was any of this illusion? He wondered and even glanced toward Vlas for some confirmation in one direction or the other.
His fellow mage seemed awestruck as well, though whether it was over the demons or the unnatural flow of blood Korsten was seeing, he had no way of knowing.
You do know, he told himself. You can feel this. You know that it’s real. You can feel her, and them.
In his mind, the words were not wholly his own. They were inspired by Merran. Korsten knew that a part of him still wanted to shelter from this madness … from this war, from this new life….
He grasped vainly toward ignorance when he felt the pressure bearing down on him, and Merran always pulled him back around and set reality before him. This was what his life had become. There was no hiding from it or stepping aside so that it could pass him by. His attendance was imperative and unavoidable. He’d already learned that, but there was still some amount of fear at the prospect of embracing his destiny fully. It was time to shed another layer of that fear before Serawe uncovered it. He felt as if every move she made was working to expose him, to discover how vulnerable he still was and to shatter the mask Allurance showed her.
As the thoughts formed so readily, he came to the harsh awareness that it was the demoness working her suppressive will against him. It reminded him very quickly of how he’d felt in the presence of another of her kind. Why was he still so susceptible?
Another of the confused Vadryn which huddled near to him was taken by the same sudden, brutal means as the two before it. As its smoky presence drifted upward, spiraling the shaft of hardened blood Serawe had dropped onto it, Korsten found himself suddenly angered. She was toying with him, trying to whittle him down and using her own in a grotesque physical representation of her tactics. He was irritated as well to witness her disregard her followers so idly, like the crone had done. Over what? The gluttony of her kind? What did the Vadryn want in this war?
“What do you want?” Korsten muttered and he drew in a sharp breath, half-prepared to shout his question, but then Serawe spoke to him.
“You know what we want.” Her voice traveled in a series of disconnected echoes across the chamber, helping to keep her physical location hidden. “You’re going to help us find it. But you won’t be his this time … you’ll be mine. Come back to us, sweet Korsten. Come to me.….”
Dread spiked within his heart, making its rhythm painful. Agitation that was equally sharp raked against his skin, causing him to tremble slightly while he glared at the canopy of blood overhead. His state sent a ripple of response through the remaining horde of Vadryn around him. Some of the creatures released their shared tension with hissing sounds, their malformed lips peeling back from black teeth. A few of the demons rose to a stand from their prior crouched positions. Their stance emanated challenge and defiance that mirrored the sensations rising within Korsten. He was uncertain if it was by his will or theirs that they attacked.
To say that Vaelyx was startled by what he’d seen would be an understatement. He was that, to a level that made it difficult for him to concentrate on the task at hand. He had known that the well was there; he’d dreamed about it more often than he cared to consider, but to actually see it … to smell it and feel it … knowing that it represented so much carnage and malevolence….
When he’d met Serawe, she was a woman … an enchantress, some might have said, but in his younger days he would not have labeled her a demon. She was beautiful … of another world or a dream, but still so present and so real. Perhaps his seduction was all too easy for her. Perhaps he should have been able to see what he saw so clearly now, what he’d seen in dreams shared with a daughter that should not have been conceived. Maybe to Raiss, he did appear a fool and mad. He’d gone about everything wrong. Maybe. It didn’t matter. This was the last nightmare he was sharing with a demon.
“Were you a member of the coven?”
The voice of the young woman who’d assigned herself his keeper since parting ways with the mages brought him back to the moment. He glanced over at her strong, youthful features that spoke heavily of the Islands’ native people and shook his head. “No.”
“Did you feed her?” Imris asked next—it may have been the same question with different words.
Again, Vaelyx shook his head. “No.”
Thinking back on his encounter with the woman Serawe had seemed, it was all too brief and scarcely real enough to recall. It had happened in a house not far from the caves. During his stay in a structure he wasn’t expecting to find on an ‘uninhabited’ island, he dreamed of waking in the night and seeing lights in the woods and fires on the rocks. When he’d awakened on what he’d thought was the following morning, he was alone in the house and his investigation into the area had brought him to the mouth of a cave. In that hour, he’d turned away. Without admitting it to himself, he’d known it was the depths of hell he’d come to the threshold of. He wasn’t ready for the punishment he may have earned. Not a year later, hounded by nightmares he could not have described on threat of his life, he returned to the island. A woman waited for him in the house and presented him with a daughter. She’d said that Serawe had gifted him. So many dismal and shameful thoughts had gone through his mind then, including ways to kill the infant. Ultimately, he could not—perhaps the demon knew he would not be able to—and he brought the child to the coven. Without mages present, without the Seminary responding to him, he considered the witches the next best option. Surely, they would know what to do with a child of foul conception … surely, they would be able to
protect her from her own tainted soul. He knew he could not and he would not put any of it on his nephew … not so directly, not then.
Ersana volunteered to take the girl, but she had to become a child of the Ancient Mother, and so did he. Vaelyx accepted the terms and planned to have no further contact with his daughter. After his arrest, it seemed he would not have to worry about it. But then the dreams started.
Through the dreams Vaelyx learned that he hadn’t spent a night on the island, but several. He’d lost months and he’d been practicing all of the ritual his obsessive study of the Islands coven had planted in his mind. Maybe in that way, he was a member of Serawe’s cult after all, though he’d never given blood to the demon, not that he could recall. He thought it better, then, that he should remain imprisoned. As the intensity of the nightmares grew, he realized that he couldn’t leave it alone. At a very young age, his daughter joined him in his dreams. He spoke to her and she showed him the world outside of his cell through her eyes that should have been innocent. It was very easy to move with her and later to guide her movement. She became increasingly absent to the experience and at one point, Ersana visited to insist that he stop. He promised her then that he would, and as the dreams continued, he continued to have contact with Dacia. Escape was simple, but he had used the Islands method, which was the same as passing through the demon’s domain. Alerted fully to Dacia, Serawe moved to claim her. She sent one of her own to inhabit the vessel she’d made of human flesh. What she would have done with Dacia, Vaelyx couldn’t say. Serawe had been interrupted, by the last source Vaelyx had hoped to see in Indhovan again.
With the mages present, it was only a matter of time before the one he and Dacia had dreamed about showed himself. The ancient boy, who would dam the flow of Serawe’s curse. In the dream Serawe was a giant spider, who didn’t seem to notice the golden head in her midst. Vaelyx took that to mean that Vlas would be able to go into the caves unnoticed by the demon and that they would have no contact. He hadn’t anticipated the arrival of another mage and to his recollection there was no part of the dream that included the redhead. The fate of the blond in his and Dacia’s shared dream was to be buried alive. And now Vaelyx found himself searching for the very tools that would potentially hasten that fate. If only Imris understood what, other than exhaustion, inspired the hesitation in his steps. As protective of the mage as she seemed to have grown, she might have clubbed him and abandoned their search. Then again, considering her open hatred of the Islands coven and its ways, she might have continued through with it anyway, trusting the mage or his fellow to avoid hazard. Maybe that way of thinking would be correct. He found himself old and direly short on faith.