The light intensified as we neared, revealing a hunched form with its back to us, sitting in a rocking chair in what looked like a rather cozy room complete with upholstered furniture, and a large woven rug. The cozy scene was thrown off slightly by the surrounding darkness. I couldn't tell where the light was coming from, but it should have touched that darkness. Instead the black was like a solid wall.
At first I thought that the figure in the rocking chair was an elderly woman, since all I could see was the hump of her back and the lackluster fabric of her robes, but then she left her chair to turn and rise before us. At her full height, she stood a good foot taller than Alaric, and that wasn't including the horns protruding from her skull. They were similar to the horns one would see on a deer, and they somehow complimented her strange, narrow face. I wasn't quite sure how I knew the creature was female. She just had a certain femininity about her.
“She's a Norn,” Alaric muttered, sounding slightly awestruck.
I knew that Norns were creatures of Norse Myth, and that they somehow controlled the fates, but that was about it. Suddenly I wished that I had finished the book I'd started on Norse myth years before.
The Norn blinked large, up-tilted eyes at us as we took in her lanky, robed form. It was difficult to tell in the soft light, but I was pretty sure that her skin was a pale shade of green.
She spoke to us in a harsh guttural language that I didn't understand. I was about to ask the creature if she spoke English, when Alaric replied in the same language. I realized with a start that it was the same language I'd heard him and Sophie speaking.
“She asked us why we're here, and in such a poor state of dress,” Alaric explained. “I told her what we seek, and that we were attacked.”
“Was it wise to just blurt it out like that?” I asked as the creature stared at us intently.
“Lying to a Norn would do no good,” Alaric replied with a small smile.
The Norn said something else that made Alaric look over his shoulder.
“What is it?” I asked as my eyes searched the near-darkness behind us.
“She said that someone else is approaching. Probably whoever pushed us down here.”
The Norn said something else, something that made Alaric's face go rigid.
“What did she say?” I asked when he didn't explain. When he didn't answer me I shook his arm, not liking the look in his eyes.
“She asked who will claim the charm after we've sacrificed ourselves,” he explained evenly.
My eyes widened. “What?”
Before I could say something else, someone stepped up beside us. It was Diana, looking a little disheveled in her black cloak. She said something in the Norn's language as she took another step forward to stand slightly in front of us. I somehow wasn't surprised to see Diana. I knew she'd find us in time.
Alaric let out what sounded like a curse word, then grabbed my arm and started pulling me backward.
“What's happening?” I gasped as I looked back to where the Norn and Diana stood.
“It's a trap, Maddy,” Alaric explained, sounding enraged rather than scared. “A sacrifice is needed to release the charm, and we're it.”
The whispers started up again, almost drowning out Alaric's words. With all of the excitement, I hadn't even realized that they'd been quiet until then. I pulled away from Alaric and clamped my hands over my ears, but it did nothing to stop the sound because the voices weren't coming from around me, they were inside my head.
Alaric put his arm around my back to guide me forward, while Diana and the Norn did nothing to stop us. I found out why a moment later as the darkness in front of us solidified. I could see no wall or barrier, but whatever we pushed against was solid, as if the darkness had been given form.
We both turned back to face Diana, our backs against the solid wall of darkness.
“The least you can do is tell us why it had to be us,” Alaric said coldly.
I looked at his icy expression and wanted to yell at him for just giving up, but the voices in my head were making me dizzy, especially since I couldn't understand what any of them were saying.
Diana chuckled. She looked like a dwarf next to the Norn, but stood so confidently that she still looked imposing. “The charm is sealed by ritual,” she explained, sounding almost cocky. “Six of the Vaettir died to seal it. Each pair loved each other dearly. The woman of each couple killed her mate, and then herself, first sacrificing her heart, and then her life. That kind of magic is not easy to undo.”
Unable to keep my equilibrium I fell to my knees, doing my best to understand what Diana was saying. Alaric crouched beside me, but kept his eyes on Diana.
“I needed an executioner to release their spirits, so that they would no longer bind the charm,” she continued.
“We had assumed that already,” Alaric snapped, “but that does not explain the need for sacrifice.”
Diana chuckled again, and I would have walked forward and hit her had I been able to stand. “Magic is a funny thing,” she explained. “To fully undo a ritual, it must be repeated in some way. It seemed much more simple to just use the two of you, rather than finding another couple.”
Suddenly the voices stopped all at once, and I knew the dead were paying attention to us. I could sense the apprehension of the spirits. Though I saw no mounds, I knew the burial place had to be near. I could feel each of the corpses pulsing like I had seven heartbeats.
“But she does not love me. Cutting out my heart might hurt her, but it would not be akin to sacrificing her own heart,” Alaric stated boldly. “Putting us together in a hotel room for a night was a feeble plan, at best. The ritual will not work.”
I was finally able to peel my eyes away from Diana at that. Alaric met my gaze as I looked over at him.
“Maddy?” he said weakly. “I'm right, aren't I?”
“She already loved you, you fool,” Diana chided, “but another night to increase the bond couldn't hurt, now could it?”
Ignoring Diana, Alaric continued to stare at me. “Tell me she's wrong, Madeline,” he begged.
Was she wrong? I honestly hadn't considered the possibility of loving Alaric. I knew that I could grow to love him, given the time, but did I love him already?
My eyes widened in horror as I realized the answer. I did love him, at least in some odd, twisted way, and now we were probably going to die for it.
The look on my face was enough of an answer for Alaric. “Find a way out,” he ordered with a final, determined look at me. “I'll hold them off.”
He stood, bringing me up with him, then gently shoved me behind him.
“I won't leave you,” I managed to reply, though I was finding it hard to breath around my panic.
The Norn said something else in her language, then Diana said, “No, she won't be leaving you. Ever.”
The voices in my head started anew and I crumpled back to the ground. I watched helplessly as Alaric ran toward Diana and the Norn, and then my vision went black. My last thought was I hope I don't wake up.
Chapter Five
I was disoriented when I first woke, then I rolled my head to the side and saw Alaric chained up to a tree, and it all came rushing back to me. The Norn. Diana. The sacrifice. We were still underground, so the tree that supported Alaric shouldn't have been there, yet its limbs stretched up into the darkness, covered in healthy green leaves.
I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up to a kneeling position. As I sat back on my haunches I realized that I was right next to one of the burial mounds. The mounds were unmarked, and covered in dark soil. The same soil now covered much of my skin. The only reason I even knew that the mounds were graves at all was because I could feel the dead below. They were all silent. Waiting.
I looked back to Alaric, who appeared unconscious, hanging limply from his bonds. I got to my feet and hurried over to him, praying to whatever forces might be listening that he was just unconscious and not dead.
I reached him and pl
aced a hand on his pale neck, searching for a pulse. It was there, but slow. I pulled my hand away, leaving a mark of black soil on his skin, then turned to search the rest of the room for a way to free him. The chain that held him was composed of dark steel with no lock that I could see.
At first the rest of the room seemed empty, then the Norn stepped out of the darkness with Diana a few steps behind. I could have sworn that there had been a solid wall where they stood just moments before.
“I won't do it,” I stated, sounding much stronger than I felt as I backed toward Alaric.
Instead of replying, the Norn raised her hand and the voices started up again. She blinked her strange, large eyes at me, completely devoid of compassion as the spirits called out. I couldn't understand their language, but being this close to them broke down other barriers.
Images flashed through my mind of their sacrifice. There had been so much blood when the men's hearts were cut out that it seeped into the soil, enriching it, though nothing would ever grow in such a place. Nothing but the tree in the center, because it was composed of the magic of sacrifice. I saw each of the women falling to the ground, dead, and then my view was from the ground as well, looking out from the eyes of the final woman as she died. The images faded and I was left with nothing but a sense of time. The spirits had been trapped there for centuries, alone and in the dark.
I opened my eyes without even realizing that I had closed them to find myself kneeling on top of one of the mounds with my arms outstretched. The woman inside had been the one to show me the images. I recoiled instantly with the realization that I had been only moments away from releasing her spirit.
At my hesitation, the images started again, taking away my other senses. I saw war. I tried to push away images of rotten corpses strewn across vast battlefields, and women and children burned alive for living along the wrong trade-route, but it was like watching a movie inside my head. I couldn't just close my eyes to shut it out.
My mind reeled away from the memories, but they stuck with me as if they were my own. I was back on the mound, with my hands buried in the black dirt. I could feel the soul within begging for release. She had died for a cause. The charm was evil, and had to be locked away, lest her children and her children's children suffer the same fate as their elders. Yet she was tired, and her children were likely dead. Why should she have to protect the charm any longer? Hadn't she sacrificed enough?
I shook my head as I reached out toward her spirit. My mind was warning me to stop, that if I set her free I would have to help the others, and then Diana would try to make me kill Alaric.
The other corpses pulled at me as I hesitated. It wasn't fair for them to stay trapped while I lived. I shook my head, knowing that last thought was not my own.
“Get on with it,” Diana demanded impatiently, snapping me back into reality.
My hands felt glued to the earth, like the woman's soul would not let me go. She would hold me there forever if I made her. The connection deepened the longer I crouched there. Suddenly I could feel not only her memories, but her body, withered and decayed, and I could feel the pain of her death. She'd taken poison after cutting out the heart of the man she loved. The poison burned down my throat and made my muscles spasm painfully, but it was nothing compared to the pain of killing the one I loved. Unable to bear the pain any longer, I released her, then fell sobbing to the ground as I felt the other dead shift in anticipation.
All I could think as the woman's energy rushed through me was, fuck this. I would not die like this woman had, and I would not let her sacrifice be in vain. If I let Diana have the charm, those in the earth below me would have died for nothing.
Not really knowing what I was doing, I took a deep, shaky breath, then shoved the woman's energy back into the ground through my hands. The power ignored the woman's now-empty corpse and forced its way through the ground until it found the others.
I stumbled to my feet as the ground began to shake. Diana no longer looked cocky, she looked terrified. “What are you doing!” she cried. “Release them!”
I could no longer hear the voices of the dead, but I could feel them. They were rising to the surface, animated by the energy I'd given them.
I ran back to Alaric, unsure of what I had just released, and clung to his limp hand. As I stood beside him the soil of the mounds began to shift. Decayed corpses pushed their way up through the soil, rising slowly to their feet. Most were just skeletons with tatters of cloth and a few dried ligaments, but some had retained a measure of dried skin.
Something squeezed my hand and I flinched, then I realized that Alaric had regained consciousness. I glanced at him, but he had eyes only for the dead.
I turned back to the corpses in question. Having their eyeless skulls staring at me should have been the most horrifying sight I'd ever seen, but I felt oddly calm. Though they did not speak, I could sense their emotions. They were still not free, and they would do anything if only I would just release them.
I smiled as inspiration hit me. I would let them go, but they would have to do me a favor first. I squeezed Alaric's hand. “Tell them to kill Diana and I'll release them,” I ordered.
“What?” Alaric asked, confused.
“I don't speak their language, tell them.”
With a shriek of frustration Diana began marching toward us, leaving the Norn to wait by herself.
“Tell them!” I pleaded.
Alaric spoke quickly in the strange, other language, and the corpses turned toward Diana in unison, freezing her in her tracks.
“No,” she breathed as she realized her predicament.
She began to back away, pleading with the corpses in their language. They all began to approach her, backing her into a corner until she reached the Norn. Diana reached out her hands, and I knew she was trying to harm the corpses like she had harmed the man back in the hotel room, but nothing happened. These Vaettir had already felt all the pain they would ever feel.
Diana turned wide eyes up to the Norn. “Stop them!” Diana pleaded, but the Norn only glanced down at her, then turned her gaze back to me.
I couldn't be sure from the distance, but I thought I saw a satisfied smile creep across the Norn's face.
Diana began to scream as the dead reached her. Her fear was more palpable than any other emotion in the room. It stabbed me in the gut like a knife.
“You'll feel me die, Madeline!” Diana threatened as skeletal hands clamped down on her aged skin.
She was right. I could feel people's wounds like they were my own, and even muted, Diana's death was going to be a horrible one. Alaric squeezed my hand hard enough to make my knuckles pop and I was able to look away from the scene.
“Focus on me,” he whispered.
There were tears in my eyes as I nodded, and then the dead began their work, tearing Diana limb from limb. I fell to the ground with the pain of it as she continued screaming in vain, but Alaric kept my hand gripped tightly in his.
I focused on him, and felt a measure of calm, but Diana's emotions of pain and fear were much stronger than calm, and they leaked through until I was screaming with her. I curled up into a little ball, with one arm raised above to retain my hold on Alaric.
Suddenly her screaming stopped, and mine cut off just as abruptly. The only sound that could be heard was from the corpses dropping pieces of Diana to the ground.
They all turned empty eye-sockets to me again, with the Norn still smiling behind them. I noticed blood on skeletal hands and tatters of clothing as the corpses began to shamble in my direction. They had done their part, now it was time to do mine.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and kept my eyes averted from Diana's remains, which wasn't really difficult with what equated to mostly decomposed zombies stealing the show. I pulled away from Alaric and stood as the first one reached me and waited silently. It was a man's corpse, and I wasn't just judging by the size of the skeleton. I could still feel the energy of who he once was, trapped inside his bones.
Sick curiosity got the best of me, and I leaned down and forward to look through his ribcage. Sure enough, a perfectly preserved heart gently pulsed inside, long since abandoned by the other organs. Estus had once told me that the heart was the key to it all. Release the heart, and the spirit could fully move on.
I reached out and placed my palm against the man's ribcage. As I did so, the heart within reacted. Instead of the fear and rage I was used to from Estus' victims, I felt an overwhelming exhaustion, tinged with sadness. My knees almost buckled at the sensation. Without thinking about it, I released the heart, willing away its melancholic hurt. The bones crumbled to the ground, no longer possessing whatever magic had held them together.
The expected rush of energy wiped away my fatigue, then the next corpse came into view. I released each of them, and felt the energy build inside me as each set of bones fell to the dark earth. The Norn watched it all impassively, but made no move to interrupt.
When I was done, I turned back toward Alaric, feeling almost drunk on extra energy. It was even more of a high than what I'd felt after releasing all of Estus' long tortured hearts, letting me know that the people who'd died to keep the charm in place had been very powerful indeed.
He looked down at me with a mixture of awe, and maybe a little bit of fear as I touched my fingers to the chains that bound him. They fell away at my touch, and I had to help steady him as his feet hit the ground.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me for several seconds, tight enough that it was hard to breathe, not that I really minded.
“You are a little bit amazing,” he whispered against my hair.
“Just a little bit?” I whispered back, still feeling giddy.
We turned, hand in hand, to face the Norn. The tall creature inclined her head in our direction, then said something in her strange language.
I looked to Alaric for a translation.
His expression was thoughtful as he said, “She asks that you approach her, alone.”
Collide and Seek: Act 4-5 (Bitter Ashes Book 2) Page 8