“Deal,” she mumbled, illness threatening to empty her stomach, if she even had one. Strange forces warred within her. With all of her will, she gave Lucifer’s hand a strong shake, but he didn’t release. Instead, he squeezed her hand even tighter.
“Deal,” he echoed, a sharp toothed smile spreading across his face. He turned her hand over, and she screamed as an invisible knife carved a sigil into the back of her hand. It started with an inverted triangle, the lines of which extended beyond the bottom point, cutting through the side of a ‘V’ shape before curling up and inward. Two lines from the triangle’s upper corners formed an ‘X’ in the center of the triangle, then passed through the slanted sides of the triangle before coming to a stop just beyond. What little blood the carved sigil spilled turned to steam as soon as it left her flesh. Once completed, the sigil glowed and burned hot, then faded into her soul without cooling. It burned like a brand within her, and realized she had borne the Mark this whole time. Another fire erupted in her head, bright yellow, orange, and red flames as opposed to the Mark’s dark crimson and infernal blaze, and she yanked her hand from Lucifer’s grip to grab at her skull. Lucifer screamed as well, stumbling away with his right hand buried in the fold of his body.
“You little bitch,” he hissed. “Did you think could double cross me, the Deceiver?!?”
“What are you talking about?” Pearl opened her mouth to ask, but instead, she screeched out, dropping to her knees and hugging her body to hold it together.
“You’re mine now,” Lucifer stabbed his injured hand, blackened and charred by Pearl’s touch, at her. “Come to me, my Condemned. Come and suffer.”
Something in Pearl yearned, no, needed to obey his orders, but she resisted it. The war within Pearl paused for the moment, but strange and powerful mana mixed within her. Her body fluxuated between weak enough to shatter under a slight breeze and mighty enough to shape the Earth with a thought.
“I said, come,” Lucifer commanded, the fingers of his charred hand cracking as they curled into a fist. She didn’t move. He marched over to her and lifted her off the ground by her neck, holding her in the air for only a second before dropping her to the ground, his good hand scorched and sizzling now. He glared at her, his body shaking with rage. “You little bastard. You think you could destroy me by hiding the Fire of God within you…”
His voice trailed off as he watched her squirm in agony. He chuckled, then laughed at her, despite his own pain. “You didn’t know the Fire of God was within you, did you? It appear as though someone else was trying to help you after all. A shame it’s going to kill you. But when it does, I’ll be back to collect what is now mine by contract.”
His last words echoed in the darkness as he faded away from this place. With Lucifer gone, nothing shielded her from the Black Heart and the winds in her mind returned as a fierce tempest, lifting her off the ground and slamming her back down. A bright light came to life behind her and when she stood to face it, the light remained behind her. Flames blossomed around her, surrounding her just as the Fire of God had surrounded Beatrice, though they didn’t burn. Even over the glow of the fire, Pearl could see the light shining behind her. The ground beneath her fell away, and the fire and the light fell with her as she floated like a leaf downward.
The flames around her flared away as she landed on a new surface and she found herself in a hall made of cracked diamonds. Shards of diamond hung in the air next to the holes they came from and didn’t move when Pearl touched them. As she stared into one of the shards, she saw the Grey King approaching. A sword entered the image and thrust out at the Grey King. Confused, Pearl looked into another shard and saw Theseus pointing to a deer some distance away. A bow rose into view, an arrow shot out, and the deer fell. The hand holding the bow belonged to her. Each shard contained one of her memories. As she walked down the hall, she heard the roaring of fire, the crackling of lightning, and a deep tone she felt more than heard over the hollow echoing of her footsteps. She followed the sounds to their source, walking down the cracked hallway for hours without getting any closer to the end.
Just as Pearl wished to reach the end, the walls and ceiling shattered and crumbled away, bringing the end of the hallway to her. In the sphere shaped cavern beyond, a space rivaling the labyrinth’s chamber beneath the Black Hill, hundreds, if not thousands, of openings to other hallways honeycombed the walls, ceiling, and floor. Two wide holes, at the top and bottom of the cavern, stretched up and down out of sight and without end. An orb of white light hovered at the cavern’s core and served as the link connecting interlocking rings of fire, black mist, and crimson blood. The ring of blood stretched, then snapped back onto its connection to the other two rings. The fire roared like a whipped beast, the black mist crackled with purple lightning, and the blood bellowed with the haunting bass of the buried ruins of Hell. Pearl ached within and without, as though the collision had struck her. The force of the blow reverberated out in all directions and cracked the walls. Large chunks of diamond launched off into the air, only to freeze a second later and hang in time, unable to return to their spots on the wall. Pearl screamed as a rock the size of her head shot up from the floor in front of her.
“Your soul,” a voice within the white light answered her question before she could ask and Pearl gasped when she saw the speaker. Another Pearl, dressed in white rags and sitting cross legged in mediation hovered within the orb of light. She smiled as she spoke to Pearl. “The center is damaged. The self is splintered.”
“Why?” She grabbed one of the diamond chunks and tried to push it back into its hole. “I should be whole, centered. Haven’t I faced enough? Haven’t I proven myself? I fought the Black Heart for justice, and not for the vengeance I sought. George Mallory may not be my father, but calling him so doesn’t disturb me. Neither does not knowing who my real father is. I’ve accepted these truths.” She stared at the ring of blood around the orb. “The deal with the Devil…he promised me my mother and a brother I didn’t know I had…is that what burdens my soul? I didn’t do it for them, I did it for me. I did it because there was no choice.”
“The center is damaged. The self is splintered,” the other Pearl repeated. Pearl shoved down on the shard as hard as she could, but it wouldn’t budge. She stepped back and considered it. The shard appeared physical, but none of this existed in a physical form, but in a metaphysical state. She placed a hand on the shard and focused on placing it back in the hole it belonged in. The shard glowed and a memory came to Pearl: Duncan making fun of her and her making fun of him in return. She couldn’t recall what either of them said, but it didn’t matter. After all this time, after all that had transpired since then, it seemed petty. Not even a year had passed, and her childish behaviors then embarrassed her.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized to the Duncan she remembered. “I’m sorry you died, and I’m sorry I didn’t understand your fear and your hate. I wasn’t smart enough then to know they were one in the same, and I’m sorry for not trying. I will do whatever I can to make your death mean something. I will never forget why I fight Chaos.”
The shard stopped glowing and dropped back into the hole it had come from. The cracks around the shard sealed up, leaving no trace of a break. Pearl smiled. “There. Not so broken anymore.”
A chime rung out from both Pearls at the same time and reverberated throughout the chamber. All of the broken shards glowed and returned to the holes they had shattered from, sealing the entire chamber whole again. Yet the other Pearl still announced, “The center is damaged. The self is splintered.”
“What’s still broken?” The ring of fire expanded, then collapsed down on the Pearl connecting the rings. The resulting wave of energy failed to crack the walls, the floor, or the ceiling and the ring of fire returned to its normal side to resume its struggle with the other rings. As they warred to break one another, the rings pulled on the ball of light around the other Pearl. Pearl studied her other self’s content face, then touched her own face a
nd thought about what Lucifer had told her. She was a mere representation of her inner self, a metaphysical in her own mind. This other Pearl…who was she?
It hurt Pearl’s head just thinking about it, then thinking about how her head could hurt if she was in her head made it only worst. Strange logic held domain in this place, so Pearl talked herself through it. “All of this is within me. I am me, within me. Or really, I’m a version of me capable of existing within myself. An observer, like those probes the Brotherhood used to explore the Black Hill. So, if I’m capable of exploring my inner self this way, there must be an inner self to explore. Which is all of this. And you…” Pearl pointed at the Pearl in the orb. “You’re my core. The center of my being. My soul. And these rings must be the Artifacts trying to consume you…me…us. The center is damaged. The self is splintered.”
She blinked and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in the place of the other Pearl within the ball of light. The rings pulled on Pearl, and while it didn’t hurt, the sensation annoyed Pearl. She stood up and grabbed at the air within the ball of light, using her authority over this mind-space to take hold of the rings. The rings resisted her mental grip on them, but she held fast.
“This is my mind, my body, my soul,” she grunted as she willed her hands towards one another. The rings fought against her, but despite their efforts, they drew closer to Pearl. Energy sparked from one ring to another and then at Pearl, protected by the orb. The chamber went dark as she brought her hands together, the ball around her the only source of light, which glowed with golden light as the rings melted into it. A golden spark hovered in her hand and as she stared at it in awe, Pearl noticed her held breath. As she exhaled, a single ring expanded out from the orb around her, a ring made of one part fire, one part black mist, and one part blood. It spun around her like the crawl of the planets. The golden spark in her hand drifted into her chest, and power, more power than she could conceive, flowed through her. Her body vibrated at frequencies known only to the divine, the damned, and the ancient.
Something beyond beckoned to her, a familiar and kind presence requesting an audience with her. She focused on the presence, as if staring at a spot on a map. Her mind needed to reach higher, but her thoughts held it within her.
So she cleared her mind and drifted away.
Chapter 20
Watchful stars dotting the black tapestry of night replaced the blinding light fading away in Pearl’s mind. Pearl watched them in return as she laid on her back and the green, frail, and fake grass beneath her prickled her skin. A familiar song drifted through the air, its lullaby melody stirring Pearl’s memories, but the strange lyrics spoiling any recollection. Sitting up, she found herself in front of a large house made of black stone, its window closed off with rusty bars. She didn’t see any doors, but the house’s interior didn’t interest her.
The music came from around the left side of the house and she followed it, seeking its source. Turning the corner, Pearl walked between the black stone house and the wooden house painted her favorite shade of dark blue. The blue house awoke a memory, and Pearl realized she had seen these houses and more before. She ran to the front of the houses and before her laid the village she had seen in her dreams.
The houses looked identical in structure and almost fake, each made of a different material, such as the one made of metal sheets and the one made of woven leaves. They crowded around the village road, a single piece of black stone embedded into the ground lined with a trail of gray stone. Smaller paths reached out from the main trail to the front of each house. Just as she did in her dreams, Pearl walked along the wall of the blue house, following the music to the front door. She reached out for the golden doorknob, hesitated, and then knocked on the door. When no response came, she opened the door.
“Hello?” she called into the house. No one answered, so she entered the house, closing the door behind her. The music played in the room to her left, a pink room with two large and wide cream-colored cushioned seats, one pushed against the far wall and one pushed up to the large window on the left wall. The window looked out on the other houses around the black stone road, but thin sheets of flimsy cloth obscured the view. Two glass shelves tucked in the corners held a variety of empty frames for small canvas. A tall, metallic silver stick with a glass bowl on top stood atop a silver circular base in the corner to Pearl’s right.
Further along the right wall, an opening led to an empty room. Even this room felt empty despite its furnishing and, in the emptiness, the music played clear. A man crooned a melancholy lullaby with instruments playing softly behind him. Hearing the lyrics now, Pearl recognized the song, though most of the words varied. Pearl searched the room, but couldn’t find the man singing. The music grew louder as she drew closer to a brown, wooden box sitting in the corner of the room. Four grooves cut into the face of the box and covered with thin cloth glowed with a soft, yellow light. Two small black wheels dotted the lower part of the box’s face over a row of square buttons, giving the box’s face the appearance of an actual face. The man’s voice came out of the box, shaking the cloth covering the grooves with every word.
“How?” Pearl asked the box.
“It’s a radio.” Pearl whipped around and reached for her still missing sword. A woman had entered the room behind Pearl, and stood with her hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket, unconcerned about Pearl’s battle ready stance. The woman’s physical similarities unnerved Pearl, and she took a moment to study her. Despite standing a few inches taller and having a decade and so on Pearl, the woman shared Pearl’s dark brown hair, fair skin, and slim figure. The jacket she wore over a gray hooded shirt ended just above the belt of her dark blue pants, from which hung a bastard sword with a black hilt in a black scabbard decorated with gold. The woman’s eyes shined with violet light as she studied Pearl with a nurturing smile. She didn’t recognize the woman, not even from her dreams, but knew this woman would do her no harm.
Then a thought came to Pearl, making her heart skip a beat and her palms sweat. “Are you…are you Judith? Are you my mother?”
“Oh my. I had forgotten…” the woman blushed. “I’m sorry, no. I’m afraid I’m not your mother. My name is Beatrice.”
“Beatrice?” Pearl growled, though the woman looked nothing like Theseus’s sister.
“No, not that Beatrice,” Beatrice chuckled, but her laughter felt as empty as the room, carved out by something within her. “Gods, I hope I’m nothing like her. Well, not like the her you fought. Before that, she was a lovely child, or so I’ve been told. Gods, I’m rambling. Is this really how it sounded? I’m sorry. I must admit, you have me a bit flustered. I’ve been trying to reach you for some time and now here you are.”
“Reach me?” Pearl repeated. “What for? How? Where are we?”
“So many questions,” Beatrice cheered with a squeal of joy. “So many wonders you’ve yet to discover. Where should we start? Well, I’ve been meditating, sending my mind back to contact you mentally in the past. Making the call was the easy part, but getting you to pick up the phone proved challenging. You see, the further back in time the connection stretches, the more receptive you, Pearl, have to be for it to reach you. It also makes the message easier to intercept, which you’ve no doubt witnessed.”
“That’s why all of this was in my dreams,” Pearl exclaimed, taking another look around the room. “The times my mind is most receptive is when I’m sleeping or meditating. Is this a dream right now?”
“Somewhat,” Beatrice smiled. “You’re not physically standing there. I’m projecting your mind into my reality, so while you can touch and move things in here, it’s all really my doing.”
“Everything is so clear,” Pearl ran her hand over the floral design on the cloth of the cushioned seats. “So real. How is this possible? Nothing has ever been this clear in any of my other dreams.”
“That’s because, at this moment in your time, you are the most mentally receptive you’ll ever be,” Be
atrice explained. She looked at the glass disk strapped to her wrist, and grimaced. She spoke faster. “You forced the three God Artifacts within you to form a united Artifact in your soul, sending a surge of energy through your body and mind, basically turning your mind into a large receiver dish—no, you don’t have those yet…Ah. This will explain it. I’m whispering from far away and the surge is making your ears large enough to hear me.”
“Oh,” Pearl responded, her mind trying to comprehend all of Beatrice’s words, understanding the core of the message. In the silence that fell between her and Beatrice, Pearl heard the song begin again. “What is this song? It sounds just like my—“
“Mother’s lullaby?” Beatrice finished with a smirk. “It’s not, though I’m beginning to think she heard part of it when my message reached her while you were still in the womb. The song is called ‘Sleep Warm,’ performed by Frank Sinatra. It won’t be written for many years in your time. Over 200 years in fact.”
“200 years?” Pearl shouted, unsure of what she just heard. Her body shook with fear, as though she stood on the edge of an invisible precipice. “Where are we?”
“See for yourself,” Beatrice gestured to the window. Pearl hesitated, waiting for Beatrice to say or do something else, but the woman smiled and pointed at the window. Pearl pushed through the long, thin curtains covering the window and looked out onto the houses and the grass and the black stone road and the starry night’s sky and the sun and the…
“What is that?” Pearl pointed to a large blue celestial body in the sky along with the Sun. “It looks like…there was a picture like that in Theseus’s library—“ The curtains ran into her neck as Beatrice pulled a string attached to the rail the curtains hung from, causing them to part. Pearl moved out of the way and the curtains bunched to the sides of the window, uncovering the view.
The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 20