A Different Kind of Despair

by Nicole Martinsen

  "Miraj." It was woman's voice. "It's me, Diana."

  She came closer, crouching behind my back. I felt her wispy touch on my skin as she pressed through the layer of realities.

  "You need to snatch the Eyes from the Crone on my mark. Send them flying. I don't care."

  Diana must've seen the questions on my face. She hurried to explain.

  "Formosa is here with help. You can't last long in Astheneia's garden. If you stay here for even a few minutes more then you'll be so weak that separating from Koronos will kill you."

  I heard the sound of footsteps settling into their final positions. Diana took a deep breath.

  "Now. Miraj, do it NOW!"

  I lashed my tail at the Crone's wrists. The Eyes of the Leviathan flew into the air.

  Tully dove down from an upper portion of the caverns, swallowing them whole.

  While she was confused Koronos launched us as far away from her as he could. It didn't take me long to see why. The Crone sprayed the place we were standing with her breath, prompting some of the nearby flowers to bloom and unleash their toxic miasma. All those unsuited to the attack withered in the space of an instant.

  She whirled on her heel, slicing her arm through the air. A wall of thorns sprung to life, binding my wrists and ankles before impaling me on their shallow spikes. I screamed as their barbs hooked into my skin. Even Koronos was jarred by the attack.

  "LEO!" Marvin's voice boomed from somewhere in the room.

  "On it!"

  Marvin's golem, Achoo, bull-rushed the Crone, momentarily knocking her off balance. While she was distracted, Leo ran to me and hacked at the branches.

  "This is gonna hurt," he warned, tearing me off the wall.

  My vision went red. I didn't know the extent of the damage, but I was almost certain that I didn't have skin on my back anymore. Tears rained from my eyes. I didn't even have the strength to whimper.

  "Hand her over to me." The voice belonged to Larry. Leo transferred me to his waiting arms. I heard the alien sound of runes fall from his lips like a string of tiny bells. I lost myself in their lilting notes, feeling my body stitch itself whole again. "It's going to be alright, Miraj. You're going to be alright."

  A chorus of yelling ensued behind me. Koronos opened my eyes and forced me to watch. The Crone was forced to fight in melee, which obviously wasn't her specialty. However, she wasn't without her defenses. Marvin egged Achoo forward. Leo brought up a series of reanimated Sickly Sisters I'd killed earlier. Some two dozen minions went at the Crone, but still they were no match against her.

  "Formosa?" I croaked. Where could she be at a time like this?

  Larry swore above me. I rolled my eyes towards him.

  "I need to fight."

  "You've done enough!" The steel in that sentence took me by surprise. "You've got an infection and I can't get it out."

  Diana hovered over me. I felt her hands on my back.

  "You can't release Koronos, Miraj. The Crone will summon him to fight at her side."

  I pushed myself out of Larry's arms, breathing hard.

  "Then what do you want me to do? Die?!"

  Marvin whirled on that last word. I saw him looking at me in alarm. I also saw the Crone reaching out to strike him with her bramble arm. I started towards him, but in my heart I knew I wouldn't make it in time.

  "GO!"

  Formosa's shrill voice emerged from the fog of the Grey. She positioned herself between the Crone and her son. I watched as blood sprayed from her mouth and the hole between her ribs.

  The Crone paused long enough to smile.

  "I've underestimated you, Formosa," she cooed, pulling the woman close. Even with her fatal wound, the Shaman Mother managed a condescending sneer. "Despite your inferior status, I rather enjoyed your company."

  For a brief instant, remorse flashed in the Crone's gilded eyes. She pursed her lips, tearing her hand out of the gaping hole she'd produced. Formosa staggered on the way down, but still managed to remain on her knees.

  The will of this woman!

  "Find the Ice Empress." Her eyes blurred. "Miraj, I leave my fool son in your care. Urah."

  Her soul left her body. I felt as though I was the only one who could see it billow towards the ceiling, a gray puff of fog streaked with black. My legs itched. I looked down to see additional kauna blooming across my upper thighs.

  Leo grabbed Marvin by the hand.

  "We need to go, NOW!"

  I don't know what they had planned, but Larry took this as his cue to pick me up and run into the water of the lake.

  12: Six Months

  Miraj. You're dying.

  I blinked, almost blinded by a flurry of faces passing over my head. Haggard and worn, Marvin, Larry, Leo, and Will argued amongst one another. Jiki was there, too. As were necromancers. Lots and lots of necromancers.

  And Koronos wasn't helping.

  You've been poisoned, Miraj. You've stayed in the garden so long you won't be able to survive once I leave your body.

  I wanted to snort, but all that came out of my mouth was a tiny wheeze.

  But I can offer you a means to live, Miraj. And all the power you could possibly need to avenge your family.

  Marvin was frantic. I'd never seen his face so red. I imagined mine was the same way the night the Kurai destroyed my home. The vision of powerlessness. Oh Marvin. Don't make that face.

  Say something. I need you to say anything if you want me to save you. If you die now then I die with you. Consider it a free deal. No strings attached.

  There was a note of desperation in the devil's tone, which told me that he was telling the whole truth for once. Koronos did not want to die, and as it stood it was only a matter of minutes before I took him down with me.

  "-t," I croaked.

  The commotion paused long enough to determine whether or not I'd actually said anything. I closed my eyes.

  "Alright."

  Everything went green.

  I felt my body absorb the Crone's poison, binding to me on a deeper level than I thought possible. Then there was Koronos, who, rather than fight me during this process, welcomed my existence in his mind. I felt all the ferocity of his evil, but also a crippling hubris, tinged with an undercurrent of primal fear.

  He was afraid of the Crone. Koronos was afraid of many things. I peered through layers of his existence, finding that whisper of an emotion at the core of nearly everything he did.

  Weakling.

  Pathetic.

  These two words swam around in my head long enough that I finally heard a grumbling sigh from the demon as he shut me out.

  I've gazed into your Abyss; now you've seen some of mine. Let's agree to keep to ourselves from now on.

  "Miraj?" Marvin's voice bid me to open my eyes. I sat up, feeling whole again, stronger, but also on the verge of breaking into pieces. "What happened?"

  "S-she bought time." The entire room, a cavern, I realized, turned to Jiki. I don't know how but we wound up in Purilo's caverns. She must've pulled everyone through water somehow. "That demon chose to abandon his right to his body. Their s-s-souls are now fused."

  I looked down at my body. My skin, while still seeming human at a glance, was covered by imperceptible scales. My nails remained unnaturally long and sharp. I still had horns and a tail, but these no longer felt temporary.

  It dawned on me with no small measure of horror that I was stuck.

  "Miraj," Jiki continued. "S-sacrificed her humanity to s-survive."

  I rose to my feet, feeling smaller than ever in a sea of eyes. Eyes filled with questions, judgment; accusations. I staggered back, mortified to be the center of attention like some sort of freak. In the end, I'd done precisely what Koronos had wanted all along.

  I became a demon.

  I locked my eyes on the nearest exit and ran at a speed no human could match, further alienating me from the people in the room. Koronos was unusually silent for once. He'd also been human. I don't know how I knew that fact, b
ut I did. This wasn't a change to be taken lightly. No matter what he thought of my coping, he was respectful enough to let me handle it on my own.

  Like the majority of Purilo's caverns, I stumbled into a cove filled with water. My eyes lost their amber light, permanently fixed into the devil's limey stare. My teeth were sharp. My tongue was forked. The kauna swirled with gaseous green mist.

  The only part of me that stayed the same was my hair, though it was wild and crusted with the black blood of demons. I felt faint, and blacked out long enough to fall forward into the pool.

  I watched the ceiling grow distant as I sank to the bottom, annoyed at the shallowness of the watery pit. I could breathe underwater. I could probably breathe in a sea of molten rock as well.

  Ayasha, first my home, then my mother. Then the necromancers and Formosa. Now my humanity.

  What crime have I committed that could have offended you so greatly?

  How much longer must I suffer your rage?

  "Miraj!"

  My name echoed from somewhere above the water. I pressed myself against the rock and felt the vibration of sound and footsteps. It was one person. A man.

  "Miraj! It's me!"

  I recognized the steel gray hair from my vantage point. Marvin was too clever for his own good. When he didn't see me up or around, he looked down.

  Our eyes met. I don't imagine mine were very inconspicuous. They probably glowed even brighter from where I was standing.

  He stretched out his hand and arched his brow at me.

  I shook my head.

  I swore I saw him roll his eyes.

  Marvin dropped a pile of bones on the floor. He must've used runes, because they quickly transformed into a bowl. He set it on his head and dipped into my aquatic realm.

  He sank down to my level and shivered at the cold of the depths. The bone covering his face grew thin enough where I could see him.

  Unlike the eyes of the other necromancers, he didn't regard me as some sort of monster. In fact, for a brief moment I forgot I wasn't human anymore.

  "Do you want to head back up and talk this out like adults?" he asked.

  I sat down and swung my legs over an outcropping of rocks.

  "Adulthood is overrated."

  His sigh reverberated through the currents. Marvin sat cross-legged on the ground.

  "That's what I've been trying to tell you for years now." He offered a tired, well-meaning smile. "You did well back there."

  "What part of any of that went well?" I demanded, finding comfort in the familiarity of my anger. "The Crone's still alive. Your mother isn't."

  I watched as his expression fell with that second statement. I would've given my soul itself to take it back. He held out his hand the second time.

  "Come to the surface with me, Miraj. I'll run out of air soon."

  I took his offer as my idea of recompense for the stupid comment. We swam until we reached air, but we didn't leave the water. Marvin plucked the bowl off his head and tossed it somewhere behind him. His wooden totem floated atop the waves between us.

  "The reason it took my mother that long to come to the chamber was because she was talking to Jiki," he revealed. "They, with Purilo's help, found a way to transport real people through the Grey. Yes, my mother died," he said slowly, as though he didn’t believe it. "But she saved everyone who had the sense to listen to her directions."

  I cast my eyes towards the darkness of the deep.

  "What's going to happen to the necromancers who chose to stay behind?"

  "I'm sure you can guess."

  Koronos piped up with his helpful input.

  They'll either be turned into demons, or torn apart for sport.

  His sights lingered on me. I tried to swim backwards, but he took me by the arm before I could get very far.

  "Miraj, look at me."

  "I don't want to."

  "Please?"

  I couldn't say no when he used that tone. I looked at Marvin, and he smiled as he'd done a hundred times before.

  "I can't believe I'm saying this. But I want to thank Koronos for once."

  What? Why?

  I smirked at the outrage of my inner devil.

  "He's surprised. He wants to know why."

  "Because he saved your life." Marvin breathed a sigh of relief. I remembered his red face over mine. The face of despair. "This is a bit embarrassing for me to admit, but I'm not used to failing. Not where saving lives is concerned, at least."

  "Spoken like a true genius."

  His face scrunched at the statement. I snickered.

  "Yeah, I guess," he admitted grudgingly. "But, in my defense, I haven't met a necromancer who wouldn't be sore in that situation."

  Marvin set his sights on the glowworms above us.

  "We're stupidly blunt. Our social graces are almost nonexistent. If we haven't operated on something then it's free to be scrutinized at our leisure… necromancers, once you take out the whole raising the dead part of the equation, are absurdly narrow-minded academics."

  "I'm not sure what you're trying to get at, Marvin."

  He crossed his arms and leaned against solid rock.

  "I saw the way you freaked out back there, Miraj. I can guess what set you off. It was probably the way they were looking at you, right?" It wasn't much of a question, sounding like a fact as he said it. And Marvin was right. "I hated being seen for the same reason when I was in Nethermount. People are either colleagues or cadavers, and nothing in between."

  "But the difference is that they have a right to look at me that way." Words, normally so difficult to find, flowed from my lips like a river. "Look at me, Marvin. I'm not human anymore. I'm a demon."

  He was amused, and that baffled me.

  "Do you remember the time you punched Lekai's face in?"

  "Which time?" I asked, serious.

  Marvin broke into a wide grin. "You were more a demon back then than you are now."

  "But look at me."

  And he did. Marvin turned and looked at me long and hard, making a show of his speculation.

  "Okay, I'm looking." He swam in a full circle making pensive sounds. "Stiiiill looking."

  "Are you blind?" I snapped. "Do you not see the horns? The tongue?"

  "I do. And?"

  "So what do you see?"

  "I see Miraj."

  My face fell to pieces. Marvin caught it between his hands. I felt myself melt between them.

  "If it weren't for you, Leo, Will, and most of the people in Nethermountain would probably be dead right now. If you hadn't gotten the Eyes away from the Crone, there's no telling what hell she would've unleashed by now." He tucked my hair behind my ears. "As far as I'm concerned, no matter what you are, you'll always be my Miraj'a."

  That did it.

  My heart burst.

  Tears streamed down my burning cheeks, so grateful that I couldn't speak even if I wanted to. Marvin kissed my forehead, then my eyes, then my nose, and with every kiss I felt my faith being restored.

  "I love you," I sobbed.

  He kissed me on the lips, barely brushing them, but they lingered there for almost a full minute. It was tangible proof that he loved me too.

  Blegh!

  "Fuck. Off."

  Marvin pulled back. "Excuse me?"

  "No!" I covered my face with my hands. "Gods, no. Not you. Koronos. He-"

  He was laughing so hard I was starting to get a headache.

  "-ow. Really? Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for that to happen?"

  My dear, as you are now one of my esteemed kind, I feel you should know that kissing a human is akin to bestiality. I was only looking out for your best interests…

  "The only beast here is you." I looked between my fingers to see that Marvin was similarly red, looking off to the side. "Um. I'm so sorry. Really, really sorry."

  I'm not.

  I wisely refrained from commenting. I started to leave the pool when Marvin took me by the hand a second time that eveni
ng.

  "You might want to wait a while."

  "Why?"

  He looked down. I followed his gaze to see that the thin fabric of the nightgown was all but transparent when wet. Oh I really didn't plan this out well.

  You're certainly more developed than I expected.

  Really, Koronos? You really had to go there?

  "I'm going to have to get out sooner or later," I said.

  "Jiki was looking for some clothes for you when I left," said Marvin. "She should come around in a little while. Just, uh… stay here, I guess."

  "Orrr you can leave," I suggested. "I know I'll be fine in the freezing water. You're going to catch a cold at this rate."

  "What sort of husband would I be if I left my wife alone in her hour of need?"

  I raised an eyebrow, swimming closer until our bodies touched.

  "Forgive me for doubting your sincerity, my love. But I can't help but notice that you use the husband label at the most convenient times."

  "Really?" He did well not to look me in the eyes. "I fail to see what's so convenient about swimming in freezing water."

  I coiled my arms around his neck, gave Koronos a furious mental probe to stay in line, and proceeded to press my breasts against his chest.

  I watched him swallow at a lump in his throat.

  "And what are you doing?" he had the gall to ask, feigning ignorance. I don't care how big a bookworm he was; there wasn't a genius alive who couldn't figure out this situation.

  "What sort of wife would I be if I allowed my husband to freeze?" I asked back, my voice a whisper in his ear. I smiled at the color creeping up his neck, leaving a trail of kisses to encourage its progression. I took no small amount of pleasure in listening to the sound of his breath stagger every time my lips pressed against his skin.

  "Two years," he said like a mantra.

  "Two years," I agreed, sighing loudly. "Two very-" I kissed his ear. "Very-" I ran my tongue along its edge. "Excruciatingly-" I grazed his lobe with my sharp teeth. "Long years.

  "You. You-" he searched for a way to deny me, to put me back at arm's length, but try as he might, my sweet necromancer had one arm around my waist and couldn't find a worthy excuse to let it go.

  "You?" I teased.

  "You," he said, this time with unexpected force, "are a cruel, sadistic-" Marvin grabbed my hair with his free hand. "Devilish woman."