by Kit Colter
Erin didn’t respond.
“Your father’s father has only brothers,” he said.
Erin considered his claim. She remembered something about her father having a grand-female type person in there somewhere, but his grandfather had been a remarried widower and the kids were all mixed up.
“But I have an older sister,” Erin said, suddenly thinking of Dannika.
“She is not your father’s child,” Brother Fars said.
Erin stared at him. “You can’t say that—”
“I knew the moment I saw you, Erin Stone,” Brother Fars said. “Turn and look at this mountain and say that it is not true.” He gestured toward the window beside them.
Erin knew the sweeping view of the mountain’s ascension waited on the other side of that window. But she refused to look and simply stared at the floor, where the flickering candlelight cast an array of shadows against the uneven bricks. “Well, if all this is true, I should be a guy,” she said, hoping Brother Fars didn’t have an explanation.
“Thirty years ago my predecessor made a seemingly appropriate decision to rid the monastery of six scrolls from the basement. The presence of the scrolls had been weighing heavily upon his mind for many years, and also the minds of the many predecessors who came before him. The presence of sorcery within a sacred place was not a thing to be taken lightly or pushed to the back of one’s thoughts. He finally admitted his discomfort to several of his most trusted brethren, and they unanimously came to the decision that the scrolls should be removed, but not destroyed. And removed they were, to a hiding place not even I know, where they remained safe for almost ten years. Then two brothers were killed and the scrolls were stolen, and nineteen years later ... Your existence makes me think the scrolls were destroyed, and the spell thus broken.” He looked at her. “I suppose it was fated to happen this way. Any sin, no matter how ancient, no matter the cause, cannot truly be laid to rest.”
Erin looked up at the mountain and tried to process what he had told her. Everything that had happened supported Brother Fars’s story, but it was too dramatic. Too complicated. Too hocus pocus.
“I can’t say I believe this—and I can’t say I don’t—but if it was all true, then what happens next?” she asked.
Brother Fars stared through that thin pane of glass, gazing out across the mountain side. “I suppose we will talk about it later,” he said. “Too much seriousness can cloud one’s vision.”
* * *
Dinner was incredibly pleasant. Erin was happy just to sit there and listen to the monks speak in German at their simple wooden table. Everything seemed less harsh inside the monastery. Less complicated. Erin liked it. The only thing that distracted her from the pleasant atmosphere was Brother Fars. He seemed very concerned with her, and Erin worried there was more to the maiden’s story he had not yet told her. All things considered, Erin decided she wouldn’t mind staying at the monastery for a day or so, just to mull things over. She needed to figure out how much truth there was to the story and why she had a vision that seemed connected. Erin flatly refused to believe that she had nine extra souls. There had to be another explanation, something that actually made sense. Something that would help her prove that she didn’t have the Nine, never had, and never would.
After dinner, Erin returned to her room. She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She was tired. Her body hurt from injuries. Her eyes closed, and she felt herself drifting toward sleep. There was a knock at the door.
“C’mon in,” Erin said, sitting up.
A monk appeared with her clothes, washed and folded with Sirian’s picture placed neatly on the top. He set the pile down on her bed, then nodded his head kindly and left the room. Erin picked up the picture, suddenly furious. She had been trying not to think about Sirian. He had tried to kill her. To turn her into a vampire. Against her will. She had known that Sirian was dangerous, that he had some bizarre ulterior motive, that he had never been truly trying to help her. But he had taken her by surprise. It wouldn’t happen again.
There was a second knock at the door. “C’mon in,” Erin said, stuffing the picture into the back pocket of her folded jeans. Brother Fars stepped into the room.
“Oh. Hey.”
“Would you like to walk with me?” he asked. “We can resume our talk.”
Erin nodded. “Just let me change clothes.”
Brother Fars nodded, gave her a half smile, and pulled the door closed. Erin threw on her clothes and denim jacket and met Brother Fars in the hall. He pulled on a very thick coat, insisted Erin do the same due to the intense cold, and led her outside. Erin found herself gawking at the sky as they walked. The wind had died completely, and the stars beamed so bright and clear that Erin felt she could simply reach out and touch them. Pale, shimmering moonlight fell over the snow everywhere around her, reflecting so powerfully she could have mistaken it for daylight beneath a silver sun. With the wind gone, the cold seemed less intense, less invading.
“I’ve decided I like Austria,” Erin said light-heartedly. It was difficult to be serious amidst this kind of beauty. There was something about the landscape, and perhaps the monastery as well, that made her want to forget about her problems—however serious they were. It seemed impossible that any of it—any of them—could truly follow her here.
Brother Fars took a deep breath. “It is a beautiful country,” he said, looking up at the sky. “You must be wondering what we can do about the nine souls.” He was walking toward the line of frost wreathed trees about two hundred yards away from the monastery.
“I guess you guys could do some kind of prayer or something, right? Or we could try to get the scrolls back.”
“You like it here, don’t you?” he asked.
“I like the monastery,” she said. “I like the brothers and, well, the mountain. It’s beautiful.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
“I knew when I came here that I would stay forever,” Brother Fars said. “I imagine you had a similar feeling.”
“Wish I could,” she replied.
“All brothers enter the faith knowing two things must happen to their lives: indulgences must be pushed aside, and great difficulties will take their place. Making the right choice is very often the hardest thing one will ever do. When I entered the faith, this was paramount in my mind and my heart.”
“I bet that kind of change is hard,” Erin said, still looking up at the sky.
“I realized then that we do not enter the faith so that we, ourselves, might find our way to heaven, but so that others could do so.”
Erin nodded.
“When I came here, I knew that was the choice I would have to make,” he said. “It is the history of this place. Self-sacrifice. The surrender of grace for the sake of the greater good.”
Erin nodded again, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “Alright?”
“I can end that history,” he said. “No one will ever have to make that choice again here. I can end it now.”
Then Erin saw it—pale starlight glinting against sharpened steel. Erin leapt backwards as the knife sliced down and pain seared across her forearm as she blocked the strike. Brother Fars attacked with so much force that when the blade missed its mark, he stumbled forward into the snow.
“Why are you doing this!?” Erin stammered, scrambling backwards. “You helped me. You took care of me—just to kill me?”
Brother Fars moved to his feet. “We had to be sure it was truly you. Had to be certain you were her … the Indian girl with the Nine.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
Before he could take another step, Erin was up and running. Dashing into the trees and sprinting with all her might. She didn’t think about tripping or hitting something in the dark. She couldn’t afford to. So she ran, with everything she had, until the sound of Brother Fars’s footsteps were long silent. She was still for only seconds. Her mind told her to stop, to head down the mountain, to find somewhere
to hide or get back on the train.
But her body was taking her up. Higher and higher, climbing the mountain as though she knew exactly where she was going. Erin told herself to stop. To think about this. She told herself she was just panicked.
And she kept climbing, coldness nipping at her face and hands, her injured body aching, her mind protesting wildly.
Could she stop herself?
The fact that she didn’t know, that the answer might be no, was terrifying. Something in her didn’t want to stop, and whatever it was—it was winning. So, Erin climbed on, and tried to tell herself this was her only real option. The monks were after her now. Sirian and a bunch of other dangers were waiting in the city below. What was the worst thing that could happen at the top of a mountain?
She could freeze to death.
That wasn’t so bad.
Yes. Yes, it was. It was a horrible way to die. She was just panicking. She had to stop.
She didn’t.
Erin climbed and climbed and continued climbing. Up—up—further up. So far up she thought it would take her days to get down. Scraping her hands, knees, and elbows on ice and snow covered rocks. Fingers bleeding. Mumbling arguments to herself. The distant awareness of injuries was muted by the numbing, overwhelming cold.
The logical part of Erin’s mind told her this was a mental breakdown. A psychotic break. She was in Austria climbing a mountain in the middle of the night. A monk had just tried to kill her. Everyone was trying to kill her. Now, it seemed, she was trying to kill herself with this mountain climbing nonsense.
She had to stop. She had to stop. She had to stop.
She couldn’t.
Her legs pushed harder, as though reacting to the thought, fingers digging deeper into the ice and snow. And her body kept climbing even after her mind could no longer continue. Drifting just between sleep and waking, Erin gave in and let her body go, passing the line where the snow failed and green grasses folded beneath her clawing fingertips, and further still—letting her body climb and climb and climb higher into the cold and darkness.
Chapter 21
Erin registered the fact that her eyes were not only open, but looking down the sloping entrance of a gaping cave-mouth. She started to stand up a little straighter, then froze when she found nothing but sky behind her. Erin slowly turned around and gazed down what had to be over a hundred feet of sheer cliff face. She took a deep breath and inched away from the ledge and onto a slab of stone. Miles of night air stretched out around her, and Erin felt like the darkened sky was trying to pull her right off the earth—out into the awful blackness. Wind lashed across her body, threatening her balance.
This was really, incredibly high.
Something in her chest kept pulling toward the cave. Tugging, too forcefully to be comfortable, too forcefully to ignore. Erin looked at the cliff and wondered how to get down. She saw more grey cliff face and nothing like an escape route. She didn’t really expect to find an easier path inside the cave. She was more likely to get lost and die of dehydration or fall into a crevice. So, she was stuck. At least until sunrise when she could get a better look at the situation.
The tugging in Erin’s chest strengthened, and she felt her left foot slide forward. She held onto the rock more tightly, pulled her foot back, and looked at the dark abyss of the cave mouth. Brother Fars’s story about the demon, Sauth Rahn, filled her thoughts. He had said Sauth Rahn was bound inside the mountain. But the demon was dead. Gone. But, if Erin was where she thought she was—the entrance to Sauth Rahn’s prison—what had brought her here?
Choices. She could try to make her way down the cliff in blind darkness. Or try to make her way up the cliff in blind darkness. Or sit here and wait until sunrise. Or take her chances with the cave and whatever had brought her here, assuming it was something other than insanity.
The tugging sensation in Erin’s chest intensified, and a sharp pain shot through her sternum. She shook her head and leaned into the stone ledge, clinging to it with bleeding fingers. Then the wind started blowing. Gusting currents whipped across her body, lashing her face with bits of rock it tore from the surrounding cliff side. Pushing. Pulling. Lashing. Swirling over her like the tongue of some unseen force determined to fling her away from the ledge and into the sky. Erin squinted against a shower of debris as fragments of dirt and rock flooded her mouth and nostrils. She felt her foot slip back, toward the abyss, and quickly dropped her body into the cave. She stayed half crouched and carefully made her way down the slope until the wind could no longer reach her. Then she dusted off her face and stared into the black depths before her. The tugging in her chest continued, but she walked over to the cave wall and sat down. Crossed her arms and let her vision drift out of focus. She remained that way, the tugging in her chest increasing each moment, and eventually she began to wonder if she was misinterpreting the signs of a heart attack. The pain was branching out from her sternum to her collar bones, her shoulders, her ribs, her pelvis. Radiating through her body like some lightless electric charge. Was this it? Had she pushed herself too far? Was her body literally just giving out? A heavy, warm blackness swirled across her sight, and Erin wondered, briefly, if that was common for heart attacks.
And then everything went dark.
* * *
Erin dreamt of the maiden—walking down the sloping cave-mouth, completely blind in the darkness, but absolutely sure of where she was going. She didn’t know how far she traveled like this, blind and sure, along winding tunnels which thinned and widened, shortened and heightened, but never enough to stop her. Then the tunnel opened into an enormous, sweeping chamber, all jutting grey stone and sharp edges. It was then that she realized she could see. There was strange light in the chamber, as though the faintest starlight was pouring straight through the mountainside. She stepped forward.
The maiden tucked a lock of blond hair behind her ear. In her left hand, she held a black spear, several inches taller than herself, engraved with a red vine leading to the large, sharp obsidian point. She wore a black robe with crimson lining and slowly pulled the hood from her head, yet remained silent. She didn’t have to say anything. The demon knew she was here, knew what she had come for, and knew what she was thinking.
This is the end. The last sacrifice. My child will live.
The maiden could feel the demon moving. Shadows—sliding through shadows—just out of sight. And she could feel him thinking. Could feel him grinning down at her. Could feel him watching with hidden demon eyes. He had been waiting for her.
The maiden gasped as a sudden, bone-crushing force slammed into her stomach. Her body was hurled backward and driven into the stone wall. The demon held her there, a great arch of swirling shadow which reached through the darkness like the coils of an enormous serpent.
The maiden jammed the spear-point into the demon. Light and humming energy poured through the obsidian point and into the swirling darkness. The demon retracted sharply, and the maiden slid down the side of the cave wall to the floor, tightened her grip on the spear, then let out a furious cry and sprinted forward.
Sauth Rahn looked down at a blond woman with a spear. He felt the maiden’s fury, felt the unnatural power coursing through the maiden’s veins, felt the sheer determination to survive—to save the life of her unborn child—and he was amused by it.
I will never be destroyed.
The maiden’s spear point sliced into his body, and Sauth Rahn howled out as the churning energy ripped through the entirety of his being like a lightning bolt. Shaking. Shaking. Shaking him apart. Rage. He was going to tear the maiden to pieces while she was still breathing. Let her live just long enough to see her own heart—and watch it fail.
The maiden stared down the length of her spear at the dense body of shadows impaled on the other end, feeling neither victory nor fear. All she knew was that she couldn’t quit. Wouldn’t quit. Not until there was nothing left of him to fight.
The demon pushed against the spear, freeing himself, and
the maiden lost her footing. She gasped as something slashed across her back, tearing through robe and flesh. Another slash, and she felt the skin on one side of her face split. Blood gushed into her left eye. She saw the demon’s true form then, a towering, almost glittering white bone structure. Tendrils of spectral light gracefully draped themselves around a skeletal human figure, its cavernous form illuminated from within, its eyes so dark and depthless there could be no end behind them. The instant it happened, she jabbed the spear forward.
The demon swished to the right and flayed open the maiden’s back.
The maiden whipped around and stabbed again. Missed.
The demon darted to the side and raked its claws down the maiden’s ribs. She tumbled forward, then used the momentum to fling herself toward the demon, and jammed the spear into his chest.
But then she didn’t stop.
She kept pushing, using the spear-point to guide the energy deeper into the core of his body. The maiden screamed. The spear flared into sudden, unbearable heat beneath her palms, burning her flesh, then shattered with a blinding flash. The maiden pushed forward still, driving her hands through the demon’s chest and straight into his heart.
Sauth Rahn roared. Trails of snaking ash darted across the demon’s skeletal white body. Feeling his existence being torn away, feeling the violent energy pouring through the maiden’s hands and into his body, he made the only decision he could.
He took the nearest escape route: the maiden’s body.
As the monks’ soul energy poured from the maiden’s body, Sauth Rahn poured himself into her. Fleeing into her human form. Yet, inside, something strange was happening to him. The energy was smothering him. Binding him. Wrapping around and around until he was caged within it. He could feel himself breaking away. Splitting apart. He wasn’t done yet. He had left too much behind. Too much was trapped at the end of the maiden’s spear. But then it was too late, and the maiden had won.