by Matthew Cook
I scratched at Kirin's window, my pack already slung over my shoulder. I was certain she would follow. Were we not sisters? Twins? I would dazzle her with my new-found skills and knowledge and we would take our places at my mistress's side, beholden to no man. When she did not reply, I crept to the door and quietly unlatched it.
The familiar, dread smell struck me first, a mixture of copper and the heavy, organic smell of death. Blood spattered the walls. From beneath the kitchen table, an ivory hand could be seen in the dim firelight.
Her breast bore the crimson stains of her lifeblood. The weapon, a carving knife of rare Ulean steel that my own father had given her as a bride gift, lay on the floor. She looked surprised, as if death had played a sudden and not terribly funny joke on her. A wine-besotted snore reached me from the back bedroom.
I stood and watched him for what seemed like hours as my mind struggled to accept what he had done. Marcus lay there, his once-beautiful face swollen with drink, mouth open in a slack-jawed snore. Her blood was crusted on his hands, staining the pillowcases and sheet and the wine bottle he still clutched.
I knew what must be done, but whatever remaining wisps of the girl I had once been screamed at me that it was wrong, wrong, wrong. I closed my eyes and made my decision, stilling the last feeble protests. When next they opened, they were dull, lifeless windows; portals looking in on an empty room. The girl was gone. I was ready.
My clothes gave a whisper-soft rustle as I dropped my skirts and tunic to the floor, then slipped into my sister's bed.
The moonlight slanting through the window made my skin luminous, glowing. I reached out and brushed the sweat-damp hair from Marcus's brow with a steady hand, then leaned forward to brush his lips with mine. I felt him stiffen at my touch, and moved so that he slipped inside of me.
Before the forbidden power reached out to snare his lifeblood, he muttered my sister's name—the name I would soon take as my own—telling me in a drunken mumble how sorry he was for killing me. Begging my forgiveness. It was not until my hands were on his flesh and my eyes shifted from white to black in the extremity of my transformation that he knew what shared his bed. I whispered that all was forgiven, allowing him the luxury of a last, unbroken look.
He tried to scream then, his mouth stretched in a soundless howl of agony, but my power held fast to the very roots of his breath, and the capacity was denied him at my whim. As he struggled and thrashed, his body desperately clinging to life, I rode him, my body lifting with his last desperate thrusts. My thighs and breasts and hands were slick with the blood that boiled from his eyes, his nose, anyplace and every place. The thick taste of copper was bright in my mouth as I threw back my head and moaned in mingled ecstasy and loathing.
Blood magic. Such power; such pain. All gleaned from a single, accidentally discovered book, found deep within one of Edena's chests. I never even considered that perhaps she was hiding it from me. Or from herself.
Of course I read it, knowing as each page was turned that one day I would make use of such a thing. Edena discovered the book several days after I had taken it, buried beneath my tablet and the papers strewn across my desk. By then it was too late; I had memorized it.
She railed at me, her fury reducing me to tears, screaming I was not ready for such things, that I might never be ready. I had assured her I would listen to her warnings and never use the knowledge she forbade me.
Now that same knowledge sang a song of lust and power, of sorrow and revenge, in my veins, drowning out my fears as my sister's murderer grew weaker and finally fell still beneath me. I watched in fascination as the black blood sparking on my breasts was absorbed. As dry clay drinks water, the blood sank slowly into my skin until no trace remained.
The babe slept through it all, and for that alone I give thanks to the gods. Afterwards, I stood over Vanessa's crib, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest, fascinated with the way her dark lashes rested against her cheek. She, too, bore the marks of her father's rage, four finger-shaped bruises on her arm.
I returned to my home, and stood over Urik. He sprawled on the bed, his mouth stretched in a wet snore. The herbs I had given him would assure that he felt no pain. Kirin's knife, sticky-slippery, rested in my hand. The memory of Marcus'blood on my body sang inside of me, more seductive than any lover's promises.
In the end, I left the bloodied knife in the bed beside him. Let him sleep beside a new mistress tonight, I thought.
I do not know why I spared him. Perhaps, given what happened later, I should have ended his life there, but a part of me still is glad I did not take that road.
I returned to Kirin's and gathered up the babe, shushing her sleepy cries. It took most of the night to walk to my parents’ house. Dawn's first indigo traces were in the eastern sky when I laid her basket on my mother's step. I fled then, before Vanessa could wake and rouse the household.
I did not shed tears for Kirin. I knew that death was merely a transition from one land to the next. No, my tears were for myself, for I knew my life was over, just as surely as if Marcus had plunged the knife into my own breast. Like my mistress's servants, I was dead, yet still I walked.
I left immediately, bringing nothing but the clothes on my back and the meager contents of my traveling pack. My own Ulean knife, the twin of the one Father had given Kirin on our wedding day, rested inside.
The old woman rejoiced to see me when she glimpsed my gear, but her good humor fled when she looked into my blackened eyes, orbs of purest jet within which my green irises shone like hot jewels. When I told her what I had done, the faintest spark of fear shone deep in her rheumy old eyes, but she did not turn me away.
The next morning I threw myself into my studies, delving deeply into her small library of scrolls and musty books. Within the first week I discovered the rede that I required to make my soul complete.
When the townsfolk came, led by the Allaire patriarch and searching for Marcus's murderer, the old woman hid me in the secret space beneath her barn. I lay in the dusty heat beneath the floorboards. The cold, unbreathing bodies of our servants were packed close around me, their twitches and rustlings oddly comforting. The Allaires left soon after with many a warding gesture and mumbled curse, unmanned by her unblinking good humor and the sight of the countless talismans hanging from the cottage eaves, trinkets of twisted hair and bone which she often sold to the lovesick and ignorant.
Three weeks later, in the enveloping darkness of the new moon, I slipped back into town. I lingered for an hour in the garden that once brought my sister so much joy, harvesting a bouquet of marigolds and roses from the chaotic riot into which it had lapsed. I gathered my tools and walked to the cemetery.
As required, I uncovered her body with my own hands. The earth was still soft and easy to turn with my shovel. I pried the nails loose one by one. Her coffin lid yielded with a shriek.
In the grave's stifling darkness, my hands traced the familiar features of my twin, her eyes sunken in death, skin like paper, cool and dry. They had buried her in the same silks in which she had wed, and I fingered them for a long while, imagining what color they must be now after almost a month in the ground. The smell of her transformation was thick in my nose, and the thousand tiny sounds of the new life her body was giving birth to was loud in the pit. I drew forth my knife.
I ate with relish, three mouthfuls as required, watching with my secret eye as my sister's lingering shade was drawn to me by the power of the ritual. The meat was soft, and tasted sweeter than the finest venison.
Then my sister's voice was in my mind, whispering to me the strange, alien wisdom of the vale beyond death as her thoughts mingled with mine, at once familiar and strange. I took her name as my own on that night. Kirin: one name for two souls.
The morning sun rose on her grave, carefully restored to its former condition, the only trace of my work the bouquet of flowers propped against the head stone. I would never see my parents or my home again.
Chapter Five
I look up, tears burning in my blackened green eyes. Asecond return from beyond the Vale is impossible, as I know all too well. He is lost to me forever. The squat, surprisingly heavy body begins to shrivel, becoming in moments as light and brittle as a wasp's nest rustling in the wind. His face—one half the beloved features that once filled so many passionate nights, the other the ravaged, blackened wasteland that the Mor's knife created—sinks inward, crumbling. Before I can bend to plant a last kiss on Tor's ravaged face, all that's left in my lap is a pile of coarse ash. It slips from between my grasping fingers.
All around, the sounds of the dead and dying echo from the stone walls of Fort Azure. I look up to where the men are making their last stand, packed close behind the remaining shreds of cover offered by the hastily re-piled rubbish. Beyond the barricade, the Mor are choked, packed shoulder to hulking shoulder, disdaining to even attempt to try breaching, or scaling, the walls.
Our last remaining archers, both of them, flank the remains of the gate, loosing their shafts whenever a target presents itself. Their quivers are almost empty, as is mine. Every few moments, their efforts are rewarded with an unearthly bellow of pain, as one of the darts finds a sensitive spot, but such small triumphs are heartbreakingly few.
Jazen was the last of my sweetlings. The others have all fallen, torn limb from limb by the fury of the Mor. Before they finally succumbed, I saw them drag down half-a-dozen of our attackers, throttling them, stabbing at them from behind with their blade-like limbs.
Then the Mor finally noticed that what they had taken for dead bodies were very much alive, and had turned, pausing at their assault, to deal with the new threat. It gave the men a few precious moments to rebuild the barricade, at least, for all the good it will do.
"To arms! To arms! Glory be to Loran Lightbringer!"
The cry snaps me back to the conflict about me.
Hollern, surprisingly, stands at the van, his sword hacking at the forest of chitinous limbs that tear at our last bulwark. Desperation, it seems, has finally given the man spine enough to fight. Too bad it did not give him the brains to flee when we had the time. Now we are trapped, the only exit the blocked gate.
I watch as he screams obscenities at the Mor, taunting them, entreating them to try harder to reach his blood, and the men react, redoubling their efforts. For one glorious moment it looks as if it might actually work; the Mor flow back from the opening, leaving behind severed limbs, the stumps streaming the foul black ichor that serves as their blood.
The respite is brief. A moment later, a rumbling cry fills the air. The wounded part, stepping aside to make room for a new assault. A fresh cadre of Mor crashes into the barricade like a wave. The cart groans as two of its wheels snap and buckle. Wood flies as the enemies’ powerful upper limbs rip and tear. One of the men screams as a smaller limb pistons forward, a blocky sledge clutched in the four-fingered, twin-thumbed hand. Time slows, giving me a chance to see the brass bangles twirling merrily from thongs wrapped around the Mor's wrist. One looks like a tiny six-limbed lizard. Its eyes are delicate chips of glittering obsidian.
Then the sledge crunches home and the man reels back, his mouth howling, his cheek a pulped crimson ruin. His eye flops, horribly, against his cheek. Then he is gone, lost in the chaos.
I stand, the last wisps of Jazen's desiccated flesh swirling away, my sister's voice keening in a savage cry. My bow is in my hands. I must will my hand to be still; rage makes it tremble.
The arrow flies true, striking a Mor in its laval eye, sinking deep, only a bare inch of shaft and the black feathers showing. Then it reels back, its bellow lost in the cacophony. Another takes its place.
When there are no more arrows, I drop the useless bow and draw my short sword. I find myself next to Hollern, the grinning madman. He has found glory in the moment, once more calling forth the power of Loran Lightbringer. The remaining men pack close to us, shields upraised, a dense knot of desperate flesh and steel.
My battle scream rends the air as I thrust forward, taking a Mor in the seam between crotch and leg. It pulls back, dragging me along as I clutch the slippery handle. The Mor lifts its huge claw, ready to strike me dead.
Hollern's sweeping cut cracks against the horn-like skin, deflecting the blow. The claws bury themselves in the churned, bloody earth. The pause is momentary, but it is sufficient for two soldiers to hack at the exposed joints with their knives. The Mor goes down, piping, and we shift aside, lest it eviscerate one of us with its death throes.
"We must flee! Make for the trees!” I scream. “The trees!"
"For the glory of Loran!” Hollern shouts, standing his ground. I bark out a sob; he will not flee. Battle madness has come to our commander; I have seen this before. He will die where he stands, along with all of the rest of us.
The blow comes from my left, faster than I can follow, a crushing backhand that lifts me into the air like a kicked child's toy. For a moment I am weightless, tumbling through the air. Then, like a stricken bird, I crash back to earth, landing in a painful sprawl. I fetch up against the unyielding stones of the wall, a dozen strides from the fighting.
The impact drives the breath from my lungs and sets the world spinning. Sounds deaden, as if I have plunged my head underwater.
I look up and see a Mor drive its knife completely throughHollern's chest, the fiery blade crisping the thick leather of his breastplate. His tabard smokes and chars, as tiny flames blossom like wildflowers. His scream erupts in a cloud of bloody steam as he crumples forward.
The men, as one, give a wailing groan as their commander falls. A dozen bodies litter the courtyard. Soon all of the rest will follow. I will follow.
After the rigors of combat, I lack the strength to summon so many of my children all at once. But what choice have I?
I open my inner eye and see the spirits of the fallen. Hollern's shade stares down at his body in mute shock. When I call to him, he looks at me with an eternal, undying contempt, but he cannot—or will not—resist the call. He slips back towards his smoking body, followed by the others.
When I open my eyes, I see the stirrings of my sweetlings as they rip themselves from their fleshy prisons. The Mor hesitate for a moment, perhaps unsure of what is happening, perhaps already knowing. The last remaining men do not question their good fortune, and instead make a break for the gates.
Then my children are awake at last, rising to their twisted feet, trailing shreds and scraps of their birth cocoons as they shamble forward to take revenge on their killers. Horned limb meets chitinous claw in a slithering rasp.
The world dims as the summoning I have accomplished takes its toll. The air turns cold, so cold. I cannot seem to draw a breath. The world tilts as I fall to the stones, my body leaden, impossible to control.
"For Jazen,” I mutter. “Avenge your brother, my sweet ones."
The battle is furious, but never really in doubt—the Mor are too many and my children too recently awakened, still clumsy in their newly-granted life. Still, they take a toll on their inhuman attackers, fighting until they are literally ripped limb from limb; still hacking, still tearing, until the very moment they succumb to their second deaths. My black eyes weep as, one by one, my children's lights are extinguished.
When the call comes, at first I do not recognize it. Avoice, a woman's voice raised in exultation, cuts across the courtyard's din. The words she sings are in a language unknown to me, yet are somehow familiar. If only I could think, but the world has grown too dark and too cold.
The Mor pause in their butchery and turn towards the gate. I move, agonizing inches, until I can see.
Outside the gates I spy a figure, clad in shining, pale silks, gesturing. Her hands are wreathed in coronas of pale lightning, crackling in the growing dawnlight. Next to her, I see a robed figure, the hooked crosier of Shanira held forth in a warding gesture. He too, is surrounded by a nimbus of light, pale yellow and misty, twirling l
ike fog.
The Mor, caught between this new threat and my remaining sweetlings, hesitate. I feel the hair on my arms prickle as it stands erect.
The woman finishes her invocation with a scream and the skies themselves answer her call. The rumble of thunder washes over the fort like an avalanche a moment before the world erupts in light.
A thunderbolt reaches down like the finger of a god, striking the Mor. The thunder is a physical thing, a noise beyond noise, sucking the breath from my lungs. I scream, the sound lost in the titanic rumble, inaudible even to my ears.
Screaming still, I fall into a bottomless black well.
Chapter Six
I almost ended my life several times in the weeks following my departure. My sister, unexpectedly, railed at me day and night, until I was ready to do almost anything to silence her. I did not understand. Did I not bring her back to me from the icy lands of death? Wasn't she grateful for what I had done?
Her journey beyond life had changed my sweet sister. I hesitate to call what she had become madness, but oft times her behavior approached that extreme. She would sing the same few lines of song, over and over and over, sometimes during the dark hours before dawn, making sleep impossible. Or she would weep, or laugh, for hour upon hour.
When she was calm, quiet, sometimes she would whisper to me about her travels beyond the vale. We would talk of the spirits she had met, explorers of the dark shore beyond the fields that we know. Of the beauty of the Higher Powers, which sometimes reached down from whatever afterlife they ruled to offer a place to some chosen one.
She told me of darker things as well, things that my mistress had never spoken of. Of the predators that roamed the border between this life and the next, inhumanly fast and savage, more tenacious, more inescapable, than death itself. Things that fed on the last lingering energies of the soul.
Her periods of calm, however, never lasted long, and soon enough she would set off on another round of weeping, or shouting, or raving, filling my head with her clamor until the idea of purchasing a few blessed hours of quiet at the price of my own life began to seem appealing.