by Kyle Olson
What good were his fangs when she could come back from a charred skeleton?
They thrashed about, locked in the macabre dance of death. He held his dominance, his chokehold. Her breaths were clipped and ragged, but the polearm kept thrashing, striking out, wielded by a limb he couldn’t pin. It could never land a telling blow upon him, but it was leaving his body a criss-cross of slashes. Didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.
Then, a surge of confidence. Slowly, far slower than it had any right, he felt her strength wane as she expended herself for the loss of blood in her veins, the lack of oxygen in her lungs.
In a rush to hasten his victory, he formed frozen blades, some of which contained more blood than water, and slashed at her tender stomach and inner limbs, matching each of her strikes with his own.
A race.
Who would tire first?
Not I! I still have a world to bring to heel!
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
Sophia, watching in… not horror, although she felt it ought to be horror, wished for something to do. Someway to aid. She knew Sejit had to be stopped, but she didn’t want her to die—assuming she could die. Not every day someone came back from a skeleton.
Fortunately, her shivering had passed as she’d taken up a cozy spot near a boulder that had once been a molten orb. A nice crust had formed over it, thanks to the blizzard, which meant she could get close enough to stay warm without risk of severe burns.
And then, as she wished and hoped for a solution, the world fell away.
Oh, good. This again.
She was where she was, but the time was different. Roads were… fresh. New construction was going up. So, the future, then.
But if they were rebuilding, then did that mean Sejit was going to be defeated? What of Ifon and Tess?
The world shifted, like it spun underneath her while she stood still.
Now how about that, she had a blanketed bundle in her arms. It squirmed about, just like a babe.
C’mon! How is that related to any of this? Give me something good!
Nothing changed, save for the burbly noises coming from the bundle in her arms. She peeled back the blanket. Looking back at her, a tiny… cat. Person. A sphinx child. It smiled at her—it had her smile—four legs and two arms squiggling about.
Ha ha, what?
The world spun again, the child vanished. Back to the present. Or near present. No one was alive. Nothing was alive. Far as she could see, the world was covered in black clouds and dry lightning. Green had sublimated to sandy desert as far she could see. In the middle of a vast expanse, a lion lay. Bony and thin. Clouded, purposeless eyes. Gazing at nothing.
Though as Sophia approached, they shifted. Focused.
The lion pleaded with Sophia. In its eyes, it made a silent request, unknown but understood.
A weight filled her hand. Sejit’s polearm. Something compelled her. She obeyed, lifting to swing—and then again, another shift.
What the fuck!
She landed in a void. A familiar void, with a familiar jackal staring right at her. For a vision, the world was remarkably aware of her.
“You’ve returned? Or, well… Isn’t that something,” it said, coiling like a wisp of smoke.
“I have no idea,” Sophia said with exasperation, “I’m just along for the ride.”
“Gakaka, indeed? Are you so sure about that?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’re not the first,” the jackal smiled its jackal smile, stepping and moving in a way only a shadow can, “I have no idea how many you’ve seen, but they’re all just… outcomes.”
“No shit. But why are they all different? It’s not like I… Damn it.”
“Gakaka, there you go, clever thing.”
“Why me? I’m just some mortal.”
“Who happens to no longer be quite so mortal and in unique company.”
Sophia sulked, prodding at the darkness, “Just once I’d like to not have to deal with this shit.”
“Fate’s a bitch. Better act quick, because if you’re here, gakaka!”
“Yeah, well, how do I—”
A flashbulb went off in front of her eyes and from the fading blindness the real world, the now world came into view.
“So what the fuck do I do?” She grumbled to herself, rubbing away the spots in her eyes as she peered over the boulder. Sejit was still in Ifon’s jaws and Tess was swaying on her feet.
What does it all mean? Three outcomes? One where everything is fine, probably, another everything is all well and fine and somehow I have a kid, and then that last one with the lion… I don’t understand.
A sharp squeal caught her attention. Sejit had gotten a rear paw under Ifon’s belly and was raking it mercilessly, shredding him apart. Ifon’s grip faltered and Sejit pulled free—and right into a prison. As the lioness dashed backwards, her retreat was blocked by a slab of ice, then on both sides, and another pair of massive slabs came down on top and in front. More ice, stolen from the blizzard, grew upon the prison, the coffin. Yet even for the speed at which the ice grew, thickening by feet with each second, the beast within fractured and buckled the walls.
From the size of a small house to a department store to a warehouse and larger still, the slab of ice expanded upon itself until the protests from within could no longer be heard upon the surface. A miniature glacier had appeared.
Silence descended, a respite for the weary.
“Reduced to a fuckin’ skeleton and still came back, pissed as ever,” said Tess as she collapsed against a frozen wall for support, sliding down to come to a rest. She coughed a few times, then sighed, “Nice idea, by the way.”
Ifon hung his head, shaking it slowly, “She’s stronger than I remember, or maybe I’m weaker. Either way, we’re running out of time. Not just from her,” he said, glancing upwards, “Surprised the only show we’ve had was from those few aircraft.”
“Yeah, awesome. It’s great getting shot in the ass while trying to deal with the real threat. Though considering how she ditched us to go ruin those jets’ day, it might wind up helping us if they popped up.”
“True. Or they could just drop another few fuel-air bombs on us. Or worse.”
A thin crack echoed and raced along the face of a wall, drawing a look of concern from Ifon. He applied another thick layer of ice, for all the good it’d do.
“Either way, we need a real solution. What about the mental trickery you attempted on me?”
“I tried. She’s learned to guard herself. I need time to pry into her.”
“Then we hit her again and weaken her further. Much as it pains me to say it, you’re the best chance we have of winning.”
Tess snickered, seemed to near the verge of descending into a full-on fit of laughs and coughs, but her amusement died away to be replaced by fatigue. “How the mighty have fallen. Daontys was your ace against her, wasn’t he?”
“Unfortunately. Then he died before he had the chance.”
“Have I mentioned how good that felt? Still does! Wouldn’t take it back, even now,” Tess chuckled, dry and raspy. She got to her feet, no longer struggling or trembling. With a shake like a wet dog she dislodged the accumulated snow from her back.
“At least you have your pride,” Ifon said, begrudgingly.
More cracks raced their way to the surface to the accompaniment of a faraway shudder.
“So,” he went on, “I could continue this until we have a small glacier, but she’d break free eventually.”
Sophia snuck away from her warm hiding spot, treading through crunching snow behind the gods. She placed a palm against the wall, and just like that, a crack appeared underneath. Her fingers snapped away like she’d touched a stove top.
“If you can do this,” Sophia said, looking up towards the great wolf, big enough to gobble her down like a dog treat, “How come you didn’t just like, completely encase her in ice to stop her from moving?”
He blinked two massive, bro
wn eyes at her. On the second blink, he held them shut and a great sigh flared his nostrils and blew Sophia’s hair back.
“Or what about like, crushing her? Just build up a huge tower or something.”
“How about that, the God of the Frozen Reaches and Conquerors getting tips from a young mortal!”
Sophia put on her smug face when Ifon had nothing to say back to her. The smug, however, vanished as she remembered herself and what she’d just witnessed, so to speak, not even minutes ago. What outcome would her idea lead to?
“You did not think of it either, Tess,” Ifon said, placing an odd emphasis on her name, ending with a derisive snort.
With a howl, the blizzard responded to his call, coming down almost as a solid blanket of snow—but nary a flake touched the ground.
Instead of the prison building up and out in a dome, it reached up towards the heavens in a giant spire, ascending 20, 50, 200, 300 feet and more. Enormous cracks appeared under the weight, ear-splitting fractures sent car-sized chunks whirling; Sophia elected to dart behind Ifon, using his leg as a pole with which to shield herself.
Further and further it built upwards. The ground groaned in protest, sinking under the bulk. Something deep within the frozen sarcophagus gave, reverberating through the ice. Sophia’s pulse quickened.
The raging blizzard abated, now little more than a flurry.
Tess placed an ear to the surface and listened at the same time she reached out to Sejit’s mind and soul. With any luck, the armor would be shattered and gone.
“Strange,” Tess said, pulling away, “I can’t make anything out except a buzzing noise.”
“Perhaps she is dead,” Ifon said, voice hopeful yet subdued.
“Perhaps…”
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
It was such a strange sensation, a foreign feeling. The first time Sejit had felt loss strong enough to shred her heart, it drove her to madness in an instant. She never had a chance to mourn, for by the time she came to her senses and returned, there was nothing left to return to. Consequence wrought by her hand.
She swore off close contact, save for the occasional pang of desire. Those weren’t close, she reasoned, just the scratching of an irritating itch.
But as she had once tasted, it would always be there in her mind, compelling her for more. Scratching an itch was no longer just scratching an itch with whoever looked best to do the job. There was more to it. A searching she wasn’t even aware of, until she was.
After some hundreds of years, she allowed herself a modicum of passion once again. Death came for him and them, as it always did. Difference was, however, they’d passed on in peace. There was no one to rage against, no world to challenge for taking her beloved. Just the nature of life itself. This was a hard lesson to accept when her first child grew old and passed, for even a natural loss was still just that.
The cycle of life and death, of love and loss, went on, until it didn’t. At some point, she became aware she was going through the motions, compelled by some hidden force. She’d become numb. So, she put a stop to it, vowing this child would be the last she would bury.
A vow she kept for a few centuries while observing the world from forgotten places. Technology marched on with unprecedented speed. For every medicine or tool, they came up with new ways of killing one another on a scale never before imaginable. Made sense, really. With more people around, they needed better ways to kill each other, otherwise there’d be no end to it. Then again, they reproduced so fast there would probably never be an end to it regardless.
She got to thinking, that, maybe, she ought to help accelerate the process. Give them a hand in wiping themselves out. It was an entertaining thought for the times when she was bored.
For a while, she’d kept herself occupied with this and that, but after year after year of denying the taste, a pit of desire had grown within her that she wasn’t aware of, until a chance encounter.
She fell hard and deep.
Centuries of passion uncorked in the span of days and weeks. Such was her intensity she’d forgotten all about helping mortals make themselves extinct.
But, the brightest fires burn the shortest, and her pregnancy was the pinch on the wick to snuff the flame. He’d never even known she was expecting.
Not long after, Tarkit was born. It wasn’t until she gazed into his chubby face for the first time did she realize it wasn’t just passion and lust that’d gone unfulfilled for so long.
She loved him more than her first born.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t a remarkable child, but soon as adolescence hit, that all changed. He grew up and out, a solid wall of a teenager and then a man. Through her instruction, or maybe the blind luck of genetics, he’d never been one to use his size against others. Used it to his advantage, for sure, but never against. Fair pride.
Then, of all things, he wanted to join the biggest war in the history of mankind to save the nation he’d grown up in. His ideals. His people. Tarkit may have been the son of Sejit, but he was still mortal—No, he was a person, and it was his duty, he’d said, to aid his fellow man. Why else would have been blessed with such a stout body, a stout heart?
He was such a silly boy, unburdened by millennia of existence.
She’d said no, of course, that he was too important. He’d countered that was exactly why he had to.
To love something, she had to let it go and watched from afar, no matter how much it crushed her. She couldn’t bear to watch him die, to lose another, for he would surely die in that war. Without him, her purpose would be gone. With his death at their hands, she wouldn’t be able to control herself. She knew.
Refusing to return to that, to experience that again, she resolved to leave.
First, she had to say goodbye.
How funny it was, then, that in that final moment, he convinced her of his purpose, coaxed the timid cat from underneath the bed. A banner, a way of living unlike she’d ever lived before. To lead them, carry them away from the path of destruction. It may have been she was just that hollow to accept his purpose so easily.
But it was something.
It was slow going, but… it felt good. She would again leave her mark upon the world. Though, as she was quick to discover, the war had been the impetus for many other such impulses from the realm of dormant myth.
Time marched on, he was growing old, yet far slower than any of her other children. She was excited. Excited! It might be possible to fully realize his vision through her before he departed.
And then…
She got wrapped up and lost sight. Without a clear picture, she grew impatient. Without patience, she became careless. In that perfect storm, she brought Tarkit.
He’d paid the price for her.
Anger was absent, having left a note: So sorry for your loss. Grief consumed her. Regret. So much regret. Funny, she never regretted anything. She cried. Funny, she never cried. She’d have given anything to bring him back. Even herself. Funny, she never wished for that.
Confused. Scared.
Alone.
What world would take him from me? What world would reject his peace?
Funny, a god of war, lamenting for peace.
She laughed for some time, through the tears.
Everything was funny, just too funny to fucking stand it. In such a broken world, what else was there to do but laugh about it?
She stumbled and fell into the pit. In that pit, she got to thinking.
Why stop at those who killed him? If not them, some other nation. If not him, another child. Will it ever stop?
Is this world worth saving?
As a final favor to this world, why don’t I speed them along? End their suffering and misery?
Take them all with me?
Yes, now you understand.
Help me.
Always.
The cage swung open on creaky hinges.
The Lady of Slaughter was reborn.
She found herself encased within ice, unable to mo
ve, let alone breath. Intelligent thought, long forced to the back seat, fought for its chance to drive, but raw, feral instinct held the controls. It knew best. It knew how to kill with unparalleled efficiency, how to tap into her boundless strength.
Thinking would just get her killed, and that wouldn’t do, not when they still lived.
The polearm mashed into her spine shifted a micrometer, chipping a bit of ice, which then allowed it to move two micrometers and make another, slightly bigger chip.
Back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster. The weapon bit into her flesh, tearing it away as much as the ice, but the pain felt good. Sejit reveled in the sensations of life, with none greater than her regeneration from a walking skeleton. Rational, thinking Sejit would have never survived that. That jackal was strong. So was the wolf. But she was stronger.
Chip chip chip, saw saw saw.
Soon the blade was moving whole inches, gouging out bigger and bigger chunks, both of ice and flesh.
With so much room available, the weight of ice crushed into the tiny gap.
A setback.
No matter. No matter at all.
Small motions, once more.
Another gap formed, then collapsed. Formed, then collapsed.
Seconds had passed.
But then, one gap did not crush down. The blade wiggled side to side until it could spin round freely. With a silent roar, the lioness sent the blade whirling, faster and faster and faster—the tiny shards of ice melted against her body, soaking into her fur.
Within a minute, she was able to move. Within another minute, she was soaked to the bone, but able to stand inside her prison. Soon, a sphere was formed from the whirling blade.
She wanted to laugh, but her lungs had nothing to suck in. Indeed, she had to tap her deep well of life just to maintain herself. The buckets were started to come up half-empty, but no matter.
She had her space. Her well boiled with frothing rage. Claw and Mun’skit struck with the fury and energy of a hundred bombs. The ice fractured like sugar glass, tendrils of cracks radiated out. The ice screamed out, no longer able to support its own weight. More fractures splintered off. She released another hundred bombs, and another, blasting her way out.