I shook my head in bitterness. ‘I need you.’
‘I needed you, sometimes,’ she said unhappily. ‘I am going to leave. I told you this many times.’
‘If you go, I shall go,’ I told her desperately. ‘I promised Grandma.’
‘Her? When? How? That is impossible,’ she said, looking bewildered and shaking as the pain conquered her. ‘Never mind. To us!’ she laughed and ripped out the blade from the wound. ‘Yfed y gwaed dy gyd-ddyn,’ she yelled with a trembling, excited voice. Then she put her full lips on bloody wound and drank.
I retched and looked at her in disbelief, wondering at the wild face, smeared with blood. She slurped, gagged, and shook her head as she came out of the wound. She was twitching, confused, still swallowing the warm liquid, near suffocating as she was trying to cope with the last of it. She got up, taking uncertain steps. She turned her back on me, raised her hands out to her sides and I swear to all that was still holy and whole, she was wrenched forward. There was no sound, no movement on the top of the hill; she just flew forward, her body lingering in the air, for the slightest moment. Then, the air before her went dark, stars disappeared and for a small, glorious moment, I felt rushing ice rumbling through my being, the distant roar of the inferno, all mixing together at the edges of my consciousness. I was happy; I was free of all the confusion in my life, the depression and felt like a small god myself. It was the power Grandma had described, I thought as I tried to make sense of it all. This was what I had been missing all my life. It was a clear, powerful, pure thrust of power, eternal and mysterious and still a power of utter clarity, and never before had I felt such bliss. I touched something wonderfully strange, laughing as I fell on my knees. It was flowing around me, inside me, sneaking to my very core, the icy sheets of power that were somewhere far, yet so close and I heard the roar and crackle of the distant fires.
Then, in the midst of my bliss, I remembered Dana and saw something had come for her indeed. White as bone, hands with absurdly long fingernails, black and sharp, came to sight. Then the mighty arms shot out, four of them springing from the air, the palms opening up towards the sky. One hand turned towards Dana and held a bright golden metal bracelet, simple and delicate. Dana’s mouth opened in a blissful scream and without any hesitation, she thrust her hand forward. The white hand gracefully slipped the bracelet on her wrist, where a bright light flared. She screamed. Her clothes burnt away in an eye blink, blue fire consuming them, and for an instant she was naked.
And then she was gone.
So was the flowing ice, the over-powerful, incredible force, the brief happiness, only leaving the ever-familiar anxiety and misery.
I was alone.
I took deep, panic-filled breaths. Dana was gone. It made no sense. There was silence, uncanny silence as if everything was postponed for a heartbeat, as if something was still waiting out there. Even the wind stood still. I shook my head heavily, feeling at a loss. She was gone, and she had done something terrible. I took careful steps forward, eyeing Ferdan’s body, looking around for anyone who might be out there lurking. Nothing.
Dana had killed him.
She thought it her right, Ferdan a gift. She had drunk his blood and then been snatched by a savage force. She had been writhing in pain and then screaming, so very happy, likely all of that at the same time, and so had I, for a moment. Like a god. Yes. That’s what I had felt like. A god. No, not like a god. Someone who can speak with the god. Grandma had talked about it, and I believed her now. That was the force that gave birth to everything. Inhuman, yet familiar. I had thought of touching it, pulling at it. I cursed and envied Dana as I went carefully towards Ferdan, who was not moving. I smelled a strange fragrance of crushed roses and jasmine as I went to my knees next to the old man. He was still alive, in terrible agony, paralyzed with it. I hesitated, remembering what Grandmother had said.
One was enough. One death?
‘Shannon,’ Ferdan groaned. ‘Dana … your sister.’
‘She is gone,’ I whispered, my head aching. ‘I don’t know where.’
‘Imagine I survived Nelson’s mad tactics and twenty years at sea only to die to a wee little girl. Your grandmother is not mad, you know,’ he grimaced, shivering in his terrible pain, and he laughed with a wince. ‘Of course, you know. You saw the bloody thing. She is far, far from mad, Shannon but did she know this would happen? That Dana needed me for such an act? I’m disappointed in her. In both of them.’
‘Perhaps she betrayed you. Grandma. Your creator did not help you,’ I told him, unsure why I mocked him, a dying man. I felt immediately ashamed.
He grimaced again, his eyes probing me with worry. ‘What took her was evil. It’s still lingering here, isn’t it? You are not cruel, just confused but you seem …’
‘I am sorry, Ferdan,’ I told him and held his hand. ‘Truly I am.’
He sighed. ‘I told you. You said hundreds of millions have died for our God, for the lessons of love and compassion. It's all worth it, if this is the alternative. It is quite natural for a man to hope for a kind God, Shannon, hope and beg that there might be just one merciful God who actually cares enough to spare the poor sods dying in shit here in this miserable place. I know as I said, of the other creatures that used to inhabit this world. Your grandma told me something, and I know she is of the old blood, even if she tries to hide it. What Dana will discover is not going to make her happy, for they are not all benevolent, not by far. Just look at me, and what they demand of us,’ he snickered and then wept in terrible pain. ‘We are tools. Just tools. Your grandmother thinks it is a terrible thing to be cut off from those beings, and probably it is for your family, leaving you listless with desire. But I think we should rather enjoy a benevolent religion than be slaves again to things who care nothing for us. Even dying is preferable to that, Shannon.’
‘I understand. I am sorry, Ferdan,’ I told him, crying, for my head was throbbing, in terrible pain. ‘But I felt something. It was wonderful, Ferdan. I don’t know what it was. Perhaps it was some strange source of magic. I loved it. And you fear it, I guess.’
His eyes glowed with hope. ‘You should fear it and the things out there, as well. Yet, perhaps you are right. It is wonderful, you said?’
‘Absolutely wonderful,’ I told him sadly. ‘Just so damned beautiful. Unexplainable.’
He nodded heavily. ‘And you felt this …thing?’
‘Yes, when the gate was open,’ I told him with yearning.
‘Do you wish to follow her?’ he asked as he saw my face, my yearning. ‘Try to look after her? And yourself. You need to change your life.’
‘Yes! And no.’ I hesitated. ‘I will change. I know it. But who is she? She murdered you, stabbed you. She was not Dana,’ I sobbed. ‘What is she?’
He clapped my hand weakly. ‘Don’t think about her. Yes, she is different. Now think about Shannon. I said it would be best to die, rather than meet the old beings. What do I know, what indeed? In there, you might find some peace from your inner demons though perhaps you will find real demons, as well. Here, you will suffer and wither. Your grandmother has been coping, but you two do not look like you might make it. There might not be a Ferdan to take you down from the noose in time. Go and see what it is like. Learn to fight. Yfed y gwaed dy gyd-ddyn.’
‘What?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘The old way, lass. Drink the blood of your fellow man. This is how they sacrificed, Shannon, in hopes of traveling. Dana knew this, apparently.’
Grandmother. She had told her. She had also known I was not mad enough to kill and bleed a living thing, not even Ferdan, but perhaps she thought I would be able to drink the blood. Something was whispering to me, coaxing me, with strange, silent words, urging me on inside my head. It was not speech, it was something different. I had an urge to obey, to please the creature I had seen. I felt my back arching, my head spinning and saw Ferdan’s eyes widen in terror. I knew my face had changed for I could not speak, my jaw was a mass of p
ain, my eyes were hurting.
‘I am so sorry, my girl,’ he whispered and turned his face away, taking his blood-soaked hands from his wound. I shrieked, cried like a madwoman. I briefly fought what I was about to do, but all I thought about was peace. No, not all. Peace and Dana. Of Rose. And of great opportunities. And escape. I saw the glistening, bleeding wound by my hands, felt something tug at me. It nearly threw me around, and so I gave up, sunk my face in Ferdan’s wound and lapped at the flowing blood like a thirsty dog, feeling his slick skin and fat and muscle in my mouth. I retched, but my mind instantly cleared.
The key had been turned.
I stood up, my arms were flailing madly, and I found myself flying up and staring at a dark, round gateway. It was still, cold, bitter, and yet inviting. The power of ice filled me again, tumbling, forceful and strange, a torrent of clear energy, and the giddy feeling of unusual clarity filled me. I forgot about poor Ferdan, and I took a deep breath, for I knew something was about to happen. Then, the four pale white arms shot out from the emptiness before me. One dark-nailed, thin hand held a bracelet. I shook in fear. It was unfair. Hearing and seeing the strange power, the promise of freedom, one would never refuse anything. Not even a strange bracelet held by a monster. I put my hand forward. The thing clamped the bracelet around my wrist, and it locked quickly. The hands grabbed me, the palms were dry and hot and the arms pulled me in as I felt cold, so cold, and my clothes just burned away to nakedness.
To darkness.
Then light.
I fell and tumbled, feeling dizzy. I saw bright, odd stars, two moons, one red, one white, and I felt water and ice rip through me. I felt a stone roof over me, then it turned to a stone floor, and I fell down. I was far from home.
PART 2: TEN TEARS
‘A woman, a human like you? No, I am not a human. Never a human. Not even quite.’
Cosia to Ron
CHAPTER 5
It was an uneven floor. I remember running my hand across it, feeling around, rubble moving under my fingers. I tried to get up, managed to get on all fours, and there I stayed, retching and weeping, for I was totally disoriented and confused. I gazed around at the deep shadows and high, uneven ceilings and heard water dripping. Then I remembered the bracelet and saw it was hanging around my left wrist.
I also noticed the bracelet was changing.
It was growing thin, sort of melting like butter; it was altering and turning into puddles of silvery golden metal. It did not drip to the dust but stayed on my skin, and I tried to scrape it off on the rubble beneath me, for I was afraid it would burn. It did not. At first. The puddles twirled on my skin and then things got really weird, for they grew sprouts, thin silvery lines running up my wrist and then my arm, producing elaborate, beautiful, hauntingly intricate lines with an increasing speed. I rolled onto my back, staring at them in horror, sobbing as I vigorously tried to rub them off. Then I attempted to grab the shoots, but there was nothing to grab, as if the silver streams were not real, only a vision.
But they were more than real.
They began to burn.
It felt like they were burrowing into my skin, into my arm, digging deep, burning into the muscle, entwining around the veins, then sliding to the bone below. I howled, I did, I screamed and sobbed and raged in fear, and I was not alone in such pain. Many other voices joined me in the screams, not near, yet all around me. That gave me brief, strange comfort. The pain tore at my arm until it stopped very suddenly, and I could only take deep, shuddering breaths, semi-conscious, still feeling something adjusting all through my arm, from my elbow to my fingertips and all the way to the bone.
Then, the silvery twirls glowed dully and the pain went away.
I sat up, experimenting with my hand. If the thing had not been so scary, it would have been so damned beautiful. Under the skin, over it, somewhere in and out of it the twirls stayed put, silvery blue and sort of metallic. I ran my finger across my forearm and then I noticed the rumble of something that I instinctively knew to be ice and the distant roar of fires, and I forgot the terror of the strange, mutating bracelet.
It was not something just anyone could notice, no, it was the power Grandma had spoken about. I heard it, felt it and somehow even saw it. It was like a new sense, one I had been denied all my life and suddenly, it all became clear. I sat there, butt naked, wondering at a torrent of eternal force as old as time and found I could perceive its finest details if I put my mind to it.
It was not like magic in the books and stories told by the old folks, no.
There were no batwings, no spirits were needed, and neither wands nor incantations were required.
It was just there.
And some could manipulate it, use it, and connect with it. Others could not. Yet, as I now know all too well, it makes all the difference on how you are trained to use it. You might be coaxed to explore it and to do it on your own, but it can kill you, or those around you. One can spend several lifetimes studying it, and you will but scratch the surface. I had felt it briefly when the portals opened and now, it was around me, calming and sensible. I sensed there was a fierce fire, a roar of ancient inferno, a river of molten, old power, like a distant echo somewhere, but much more powerful was the roar of frigid, pure waters and the rumble of primal ice. It was there, very close, and I raised my hands instinctively to pluck at it, touching it, running my fingers through it, hoping to draw some of it to me. There were millions of ways to exploit it, I decided, more than millions, I added as I attempted to grab and pluck at some of it. It was like drawing at a cotton ball, though I was sensing more than seeing the streams running across the space from it to me.
I felt an overwhelming need to mix one part of the frigid waters of the vaporous, freezing mists and some of the ice mounds tumbling down to the eternity. I felt a need to make a construct of intricate, rare beauty, and I did it, creating a strangely familiar weave of icy power, and then I was pulling at it with all my force.
The frigid force filled me so quickly I stiffened into a frozen icicle and I screamed with surprise and pain.
I was drawing quick, panicked breaths, and I pushed it all out, feeling a refreshing breath fill the room for an instant, but it was refreshing only for a moment as I suddenly felt exhausted and slumped on my knees. I was not hurt, though. Even my arm stopped throbbing. My mind was again exploring the power, but somehow I pushed away the instinct, the forces that were beautiful to feel and see, yet possibly lethal to use. I was shivering uncontrollably and got to my shaky feet. ‘God, my God,’ I was saying, rubbing my arms and chest, for I had just touched something I knew was more than likely the beginnings of all life. I shivered for a while, cursing the darkness.
But I noticed it was not so dark anymore. My eyes turned to my arm. It was sparkling with silver radiance as if my magic had turned it on, made it alive.
In the glow of my strange sigils, I saw I was standing in a cave and there was a doorway, rough, natural, perhaps. I also remembered I was nude and that I had heard other people screaming. I cursed again, feeling self-conscious, and then I giggled, wondering how the mind can worry about such things when you have just witnessed a murder, lost your sister to a dark maw and then, your mouth full of warm human blood followed her to an alien world of wonders where you touched the god and experienced a magical bone tattooing without any anesthetics. I stared around the room and noticed bits of rusted iron, an upturned mining cart. ‘Damned mine?’ I wondered as I rolled my hand across the rubble. Then, I saw a statue toppled onto its side.
I scuttled forward to stare at a half-buried face. It was a man, I thought, but perhaps not, for there was ethereal beauty in the face, nobility and perfection you could not deny. It was wearing robes and perhaps a bit of armor, chain across its chest, and a helmet with long horns, sticking out to the sides. ‘Cerunnos?’ I wondered, remembering the Celtic god few knew anything about, the lord of the horns. Obscure knowledge, I surmised, but something I had loved. Perhaps it would be of use in my new w
orld. I straightened and stared at the face. It was not human, no. Too perfect. Likely had no human concerns either.
A scream. Thin and full of pleading.
‘Dana!’ I yelled and ran for the doorway, trying to see what was down the tunnel. There was nothing, no sound of a living thing, no movement. Not even an echo. There was only the blip of dripping water, which was streaming down wetly from the gloomy walls. I walked to it and pressed my face to the rock, letting some drip to my mouth. Was I alone? No. I had heard people scream. And just now? Or was it only me? I was reputedly mad, was I not? Even Dana thought I was strange. I hesitated and wiped my mouth, happy for the cold drink that tasted somewhat sulfurous, and took steps forward toward the dark tunnel sloping downwards. It looked dank and dangerous.
Below me, something moved.
A reddish light was bobbing, up and down, crazily. I saw a girl, a head shorter than I was, with clipped, roughly cut hair and a thin face staring around, looking at the dark shadows behind her. She was naked and scared and she nearly fell as she ran off. She disappeared from sight, apparently turning a corner.
It was another person. That was all that mattered.
I made my way down, cursing the rubble-strewn slippery ground. I whimpered as some broken stones rolled under my feet, nearly twisting my ankle. I grasped at a boulder and shrieked as I saw another stony face, old and strange with broken features and hugely thick hair, a full mouth and a scar across the chin. I pushed up and decided I had no time for discoveries and games and ran down. ‘Dana! Anyone!’ I screamed. The tunnel was slippery and dangerous, water trickling down the stone in maddeningly cold rivulets, but I ran heedlessly. I was shivering, sure my lips were blue, and then I rounded a corner and fell, spilling on the stone, the way slick and smooth, plunging down into the darkness. I shrieked again, sure I was to break a bone, perhaps more. I tried to keep my feet out in front, then for the obvious reasons, being nude, I struggled to slide on my hip, but I went around and around, spitting water and for a moment I thought the water was red, and I had hurt myself. Then, it turned bright again and the mad ride went on for a while. I was sure I would be crushed, but only until the slippery stone gave up the wild decent and I rolled into a hall.
The Dark Levy: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Ten Tears Chronicles - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 1) Page 6