by A. Evermore
‘Edarna?’ she said. What did she mean? What had they been talking about? The witch continued.
‘The goddess is gone if there ever even was one, and we’d all do well to forget about her. There’s no prophecy of a Raven Queen, there’s no blue moon, and there’s no goddess called Zanufey. You dreamt it up, and I’ve never heard the like. You need to get your head checked to make up stuff like that,’ she tutted.
‘No, it’s true.’ Issa shook her head. ‘You told me most of it. How did I get here?’ She looked around.
Edarna scowled at her, her face was filled with hatred. Issa jumped up, knocking her chair over, and backed away, her heart pounding in her throat. Edarna’s eyes flared into red demon eyes and horrible feathers began to sprout out of her face. In the next moment the witch had become a huge raven. It flew at her, its sharp beak and talons stabbed at her head and arms.
‘No, Edarna stop. It’s me!’ she screamed and tried to beat back the huge bird, but it did not stop.
‘Help,’ she screamed. Talons and beak struck and sliced. Hot blood trickled down her arms. The raven was going to kill her. What was happening? This wasn’t her life, this was something else.
All at once the bird was gone, and along with it Edarna and her kitchen. Instead magenta clouds again filled the sky. She checked herself. Her arms were covered in dried blood, but they didn’t hurt and there were no wounds. She swallowed and breathed. She was not falling through the maelstrom, but she had no idea where she was.
She stood on a plain of red earth and rocks. The ground was so hot beneath her boots she felt her feet beginning to burn. The plain was vast, spreading out for miles and miles. The air was hot and dry and parched her throat. She neither knew how or why her reality changed, she had no control over anything. All she could do was face each onslaught and pray she would find a way out.
She scanned the barren land. Whilst nothing was there, all the while she felt eyes upon her. The hairs prickled on the back of her neck. Something watched her, though she tried not to imagine what. She started to walk, she didn’t know where to go, only that she had to move. The hunted feeling remained, but there was no cave or rock or tree to hide behind.
She saw a dark object lying on the earth in the distance, and moved towards it at a lurching jog. It was a person lying still. Or a body… her eager jog slowed to a tentative walk. The person was wrapped in black cloth that billowed in the wind. When she neared her eyes fell upon a lifeless face.
‘Maeve?’ Issa stared in horror. The plump face of Castle Elune’s maid was ashen and bruised in death.
‘You did this,’ the whisper came from her lifeless grey lips.
Issa swayed, feeling as if she would faint.
‘You did this,’ the body screamed and opened her eyes. They were black and shiny like onyx.
Issa ran. Other black shrouded bodies appeared around her. One by one they sat up, their grey faces and black eyes following where she went. She recognised a stable boy who had looked after Ely’s mare, then there was the seamstress who had made her dress. And then, she dared not look harder, but she thought she saw Tarry. She forced her eyes away, she did not want to see the dead of Celene or Kammy. But then they stood up and began to follow her. They started shouting at her. She covered her ears and ran faster.
Beyond a pile of rocks she glimpsed the white spire of the Temple of Celene. She ran towards it. It looked so pristine and pure in this desolate depraved place that she began to hope. She fell against the solid doors, turned the heavy handle and staggered inside. Thank the goddess it was not locked. She slammed the door shut, locked it, and leant against it with a desperate sob.
The temple was wonderfully cool and clean, and just as she remembered it before it had been destroyed. She slid down the door with a long relieved sigh. Her tunic dress was soaked in sweat and smeared with blood and dirt. She pulled the front down, but still there was no raven mark. At least she remembered it being there. That alone kept some of her sanity.
A groan came from somewhere followed by a long sigh.
‘Hello?’ she pulled herself up and tiptoed forwards.
A man moaned followed by a woman speaking softly. The sounds were coming from the far end of the temple around a corner.
‘Who is there?’ she said more quietly. Caution would be best in this place. Her breath came shallow and her hand dropped to her sword hilt. She looked down in surprise. She hadn’t had her sword before, otherwise she would have fought the raven with it. Quietly she pulled it free. More moans came, both a woman and a man, this time more urgent.
‘Are you hurt?’ she whispered as she came to the corner. Quickly she rounded it with her sword high, but the people she looked upon did not pay her any attention. It took her a while to take in what she was seeing.
Asaph was naked, and he had his back to her. Sweat rolled down his muscular body. Wrapped around his waist were long white legs, and his hands gripped the smooth bottom of a blonde haired woman. They both moaned again as he pushed into her, and together they writhed in ecstasy. She recognised that woman.
Issa gave a horrified gasp as she looked at Cirosa entwined around him. She covered her mouth and dropped her sword, it made a mighty clang on the marble floor. They both turned to look at her without ceasing their lovemaking. Asaph smiled at her pitifully, as if she were a silly child. Cirosa’s cold blue eyes stared at her, and then an impossibly long red tongue came out of her mouth and licked Asaph’s arm.
‘Stupid girl. Maybe she wants to see what a real woman looks like,’ Asaph said and laughed. He thrust harder and together they groaned.
Issa grabbed her sword and ran out of the temple, her ragged heart pounding and her mind struggling to hold on to sanity.
‘How can I fight this?’ she cried. She was trapped here, far beyond the Murk, so far down no one would ever find her. Things happened so fast she couldn’t think, she could only endure and pray she survived. She collapsed onto the ground with a sob. ‘I would rather face the Shadowlands,’ she screamed at the sky.
As soon as she thought it, the hot red landscape turned cold. The colour leaked out of the sky so that slate clouds now filled it. The wind blew frigid and she hugged her bare arms against the sudden chill. All around her loomed grey trees, and ghosts moved between their trunks. The Shadowlands, how could it be? Sorrow gripped her heart and she dropped her face into her hands, trying to muffle the sobs that shook her.
She prayed the wraiths would not hear her. How could she ever find a way out of here? Was this place nothing but an awful twisted reflection of Maioria? Was everything she thought somehow created? She could not remember what was real anymore.
She closed her eyes and brought to mind the sacred mound as clear as she could. She forcefully willed herself there. After a moment she opened her eyes. She laughed aloud when she saw the mound ahead, but the laugh died in her throat. It was the sacred mound, but it was a mess. The huge stones that surrounded it were mostly knocked down and broken. From the look of the moss upon them and the signs of extreme weathering they had been like that for a very long time.
The mound itself was still there, but it was sunken and collapsed on one side. The entrance was no longer an entrance, but just a dark hole, much like the entrance to fox’s den. She heard a footsteps running behind her. She whirled around, hand reaching for her sword, but she was too late.
The Raven Queen was there, her pale face emotionless and terrifying, her sword already falling in a downward arc. The sword sliced easily through her body, from her left ear through her throat and exited above her right breast. The shock kept the agony at bay for only a moment and then she was collapsing, bright red blood, her blood, spurted from her neck. The last thing she saw was the dragon scale-armoured woman smiling down at her with black-slitted pupils.
Chapter 34
Demon Light
I surrender. It is hopeless. There is no way out, no way to fight.
In the darkness the voices came again, they raged around her
, demanding, accusing, hating.
“Why did you kill me, Issa?”
“You did this.”
“Stupid girl.’
“It’s all in your head…”
“You should never have been born…”
Issa could not fight them or shut them out. She tried not to focus on any one of them, for fear of bringing up some distorted memory of the past in which she must act out her hopeless role. Her entire life had been a lie. Everything that she remembered was distorted. She wished she had never existed. If she had never been born Celene would not have fallen. Ma, Ely, Rance, Maeve… they would not have died. She could not undo her existence, but she could give herself to Baelthrom and end this. He would be here in the demon worlds, she was sure of it.
The thought seemed horrendous, but to exist anymore in this hell was worse. She could not use magic or her sword, and she could not find a way back to the Storm Holt. There was no one here to help her, she was utterly alone. She closed her eyes and dared to turn her mind back to the very first time she had met the Dromoorai and had felt the terror of dragon fear.
The screech of a Dread Dragon filled her ears. She blinked and froze in terror. Below her the sea crashed against the tall cliffs. Wind whipped her hair and above her the Dread Dragon came. She turned to jump from the cliff as she had before, but then stopped. Her heart pounded in her throat and she thought she would vomit. She turned to face the dragon. Its horn-covered head snaked towards her, its red eyes mesmerising. She struggled to breathe against the panic.
The beast’s giant claw reached down and grasped her waist in a crushing vice, forcing the air from her lungs. She gasped fast shallow breaths and went limp. The sea and sky rolled and rocked as the Dread Dragon carried her high. They went so high the air grew thin and her limbs froze in the cold. She passed out in the altitude.
‘So, you come to me.’ The voice that brought her round was so deep it was hard to hear, like the rumble of thunder coming from miles away and yet the vibrations are still felt.
Issa blinked into the darkness and shivered. She lay curled up and naked on a freezing stone floor. With leaden arms she pushed herself to sitting and hugged her knees. She had given herself to Baelthrom, the one she hated. It was a simple fact. She had surrendered and he had found her in the Storm Holt. It was over now, or would be soon. She began to cry.
Heavy magic draped around her in chains, sucking the strength from her body and the clarity from her mind so that she felt drugged. The memories of the recent events mingled so completely with her past that she no longer knew which ones were real. All she knew was that there was a huge presence before her and powerful alien magic moved.
‘Yes,’ she croaked, her throat was parched and bruised from the iron collar she wore. She wanted to face what was before her without fear, without trembling, but she could not even stand up. She could barely breathe, and sweat rolled down her temples despite the deathly cold.
‘I knew you would come to me in the end.’ The words wrapped themselves around her.
A giant moved in the blackness and two eyes flared into life, bright green and triangular in shape such as no human should have. Baelthrom, her heart shivered. A gauntleted hand gripped her chin and lifted her face up to look at him, she was too weak to lift it herself. Light fell upon his hideous form revealing a hideous mixture of creatures moulded together to contain his consciousness. Massive demon wings folded down against his human back, reptilian tail and legs bulged with muscles, but his face was forever hidden in his three-peaked black metal helmet.
This was the one who hunted her, this was the one who had destroyed everyone she had ever known and taken away her life. She lived only to destroy this being, but now she was here before him, she was as she never imagined being - naked, weak, powerless.
‘What shall I make of you…’ he murmured thoughtfully. His eyes changed to blue as they locked onto hers, flooding her brain with their painful light.
‘Just kill me,’ she shuddered. She tried to move her eyes but they were locked onto his.
He laughed low and deep. ‘I do not like death, it is… wrong. No, I shall not let you suffer it. I need your power. I need to know you fully within and without. But I need you pure, I need you before the Elixir of Immortality changes you forever.’
He pulled her up and crushed her against his bare chest. She could feel his human heart thudding, though the life force that animated it was far from holy. He pulled her head back and looked into her eyes. She felt his mind probe hers and had no strength to stop him.
‘Show me what you are,’ he breathed.
He crushed her chest harder against his, the feel of his bare skin against hers made her shudder, she had no strength at all to resist. She realised he was relishing the beat of her own heart, that somehow he was drawing the strength of it into his own. Her heart pounded harder, aware of the life that was leaving it. Frantically she felt for the Flow, but it was not there. Zanufey! She screamed in her mind but there came no answer other than Baelthrom’s laugh.
‘Is that your goddess? A goddess that has never and can never help you? I will be your god.’
Heat began to leave her as he drew it into himself. In its place his coldness seeped into her. The cold was deathly. It entered her mouth, her chest and her abdomen, his black alienness filling her body and soul. Pressure started in her head, which grew to excruciating levels. Black spots danced in her eyes. Pain exploded in her ears, she felt a hot trickle come from them. She was aware of moaning senselessly.
‘Let go, give yourself fully to me.’ His words whispered through the pain.
She was paralysed in his grip as he drew her essence, her life force, into himself to become one with him. She felt her body and soul dissolving in his grasp until she could no longer feel where she ended and he began.
‘You are afraid of death. Are you not tired of seeing all those you love taken from you? I can free you from death. I can free them all from death. I alone can give you immortality,’ he crooned.
Even though she had chosen to surrender, she began to struggle, her body and soul sensing the death that was coming. She fought to keep the pieces of herself together, to prevent her and Baelthrom from becoming one. For a moment he let her struggle, as if he enjoyed it, and then he pushed harder, forcing himself into her, letting her know she could not be free.
I cannot fight, I am lost. I am so far away from the light.
She stopped fighting. She surrendered. He filled her completely. Everything that she was, had been, and wanted to be, was sucked away. Her whole being was turning dark. Pitifully she began to sob as she gave up her soul to the darkness.
In their hideous melding of minds, bodies and souls she caught a glimpse of his design, caught an image of the complete jigsaw. She saw that the undead Maphraxies were nothing more than the empty soulless bodies of the living, willingly serving Baelthrom’s vast army in exchange for the immortality of the physical self. An endless life in chains. Through the Black Drink he trapped and consumed souls to feed his power. That was his strength. Their bodies he took for his army. His gift of immortality was a lie, even for those who willingly took the Black Drink. It chained their soul to Baelthrom forever and it could never be undone.
Unfettered, Baelthrom would consume all, the energy of everything would be drawn into his being. Soon he would be too powerful for anything to stop him. And then she realised he knew all of this, he had planned it. All the life of the world would become one in him, a life that was no life, a mindless existence of servitude. She saw the blackness of the dark rift that he always looked to rolling in Maioria’s sky. He wanted to take Maioria and the whole galaxy into the place from which he had come.
As the blackness swallowed her she saw the end of worlds, the end of days.
‘Issy, go to the light,’ a small voice called out, one she vaguely recognised.
There is no light, there is only nothing. I am nothing.
A faint green light glowed from far away, sho
wing her that there was darkness and she was in it. At this moment in time she knew only three things; that there was a light, there was her consciousness, and there was the darkness. The voice she only half believed was real until it came again.
‘Go to the light of Zorock,’ a deeper voice boomed.
She reached for the light and it engulfed her, driving back the darkness. A being moved, bigger than a Dread Dragon. It had all-black eyes and green hairless skin. Black horns twisted high above its elongated skull. Its face was long as was its nose, and its teeth were many fangs. Wings lay folded on its back and it crouched on thick-muscled arms and legs. The beast stared straight through her into her soul. It did something there that made her soul shiver, letting her know it could take it if it wanted to, but that it chose not to.
She felt something in her soul shaken free, and when it was gone she felt clean, as if something dirty had attached to her. The being watched her unblinking with those all seeing black eyes. It held up a hand, each finger had long black claws, and motioned her towards him. She moved fast towards the beast. She screamed.
The world came rushing back to her. In the next instant she was coughing and shaking on a stone floor. She blinked and looked up. Everything was bathed in green light, the same light she had seen in the darkness, the same green as the light that came from the moon Zorock. It came from a large crystal set in a pedestal made of rock. Beyond the crystal red demon eyes with slitted pupils glowed.
‘No more, please, no more. Just kill me, kill me,’ she begged, and laid a sweaty cheek down on the cold stone.
Several feet shuffled close and the strange murmurs of voices not wholly human came from nearby. She was too spent to look at them.
‘Are you sure she’s the one?’ a wheezy voice said. ‘She seems a bit small and weak.’
‘She was not supposed to go beyond the Pit. No wizard goes that far. Karhlusus has done more than just open the gates,’ another deeper voice replied. ‘She should have died, but she has not. She is the one. Look at the mark on her chest. The mark of the raven.’