“How dare you bring The Emissary here!” His voice was like cold granite, hard and immovable.
He stood, grabbing me by the wrist, and I muffled a cry of pain as his fingernails bit into my flesh. The air compressed into a morose gloom around him as he pulled my face close to his. “You have shown great disrespect to me and every single guest with your actions. You are nothing but a disgrace to my house and everyone who stands in it.” His words cut through me like an axe, striking deep into my heart.
I smiled at the man and in an effort to control my rising panic, took a deep breath. It mostly worked. I placed my burned hand on his hand. “My dear Zef, is that any way at all to greet an old friend?” As I spoke, the sound in the room faded away like it always did when you were insulting the witchy host of a party.
The crowd turned to look at us. Their eyes shimmered with dark curiosity even as palpable waves of fear began to move through the room. No one liked to see the man in front of me upset, but at the same time, no one could avoid watching a car crash.
A short, squat man with a mane of green hair and short stubby arms peeking from his glossy red bodysuit passed through the crowd of gaping onlookers. He stepped between us, placing a calming hand upon both of our arms.
“My dear friends, such a fine feast I have prepared on such a day as this, a day of returns.” He nodded stiffly to Zef before continuing to speak. “Let’s not let the things we let bother us bother us today. Come, come. Instead, let us eat. Such a glorious dish of fried mushrooms and tomatoes have I cooked for us. Such a fine dish it is.”
Zef tensed marginally at the man’s words and brought his left hand up to shield his eye as though he didn’t dare look at me any longer. And really, why should he? I hadn’t even thought about how he might react to the presence of The Emissary. Dioscuri weapons were conduits that allowed supernatural beings to reside in the physical world. Usually no one but the weapon’s wielder knows anything about the spirit inside. The fact that everyone seemed to know a lot more about The Emissary than I did was irksome to say the least.
“My apologies, chef. We will join you in a minute.” Zef laughed, and the sound crept across my skin on icy spider legs. He turned toward me, ignoring the chef. “Oh how quaint you have become, my Lillim, how quaint indeed.” He looked amused with himself as he poked me hard in the chest with his free hand. I staggered backward. He had knocked the breath right out of my lungs with just a poke.
“You’re a bit more rounded than I remember,” Zef continued, “but your insides are still the same. You of all people should know better than anyone what was said all those years ago, and yet you come here like this. With bloodshot eyes, bags underneath so thick, one can hardly see your face anymore.”
As he spoke, Zef turned and waved to his other guests. “Please continue in the parlor room. We have urgent business here.”
“Why have you come back here after so many years?” Zef said after everyone had left. His voice had changed. It now burned with a previously unknown ferocity as though some change had occurred. “And why is your hand bandaged?”
“I hurt it in a fight.” I shrugged, wondering why he had brought it up. I’d come to see him before while injured and he’d never mentioned it. What had changed?
“Do you know why the moth seeks the flame, young one?” he asked, ignoring my response.
“No.” This was how it always was with Zef. The questions would start and they would not end until he pinpointed exactly what it was he wanted to make known. I just wished I knew what it was. That would save a ton of time.
“The moth journeys to the flame because the moth has to be a moth despite unfavorable circumstances. The moth must make his own existence real to himself at every single moment. This simple fact is something man has to conquer, hour after hour, until the day he dies. Man must earn his life. Man must earn the right to walk through this world. That is why the moth continually tries to burn itself in the flames, simply to exist.” Zef shook his head.
“I’m not trying to burn myself or take some kinda leap of faith,” I said, spinning on my heel and making my way to the backroom. It was through that door that I would find passage to the nether and to Warthor.
Zef laughed as though this was precisely the reaction he had expected to get from me. Then again, knowing him, it probably was.
As I approached the door, he appeared in front of me with his long black katana drawn. It had happened so quickly, I almost thought he’d teleported. Then again, for all I knew, he had teleported.
The blade pressed to my throat was almost eight-feet long and a small pinprick of blood welled like a tiny teardrop on my neck. I straightened just a bit but didn’t step back. If I did, he’d know.
“Have I taught you nothing? Have I taught you so little?” Zef shook his head. “It is not you who is seeking the flame. It is your master, even I can see that clearly. He has taken Mattoc from you and in doing so he has left you all alone.”
Zef flung his free hand outward with blinding speed, striking me hard across the face. I crashed into the hard rock wall and crumbled to my knees. I tried to look in his direction but my vision was marred by a reddish haze.
“Why did you not come to me sooner? Is asking for help so horrible? Are there not worse things in the world?” he continued, anger filling his words.
I had half a mind to yell at him, but I knew better than to complain. If I did, it would just launch him into a new lecture, and I barely had time for this one, let alone another one.
I lifted my shaking body off the floor and leaned against the wall. Blood welled in my mouth, the acrid coppery taste washing over my tongue and down my throat. I wanted to spit, but I couldn’t. Not now. Not in front of him.
“There are more ways to beat someone than by force, Lillim. You could take someone hostage and defeat them that way. You could crush their will to fight and defeat them that way. Not everything is as blatant as raw power. Dirge spent an entire lifetime to learn that one simple fact and yet still it escapes you? Can your soul truly be so stubborn?” His words annoyed me. Of course there were ways to win beyond direct force, but man, was direct force effective. After all, no amount of planning, conniving, and strategy, ever beat a bullet to the face.
“Look, I don’t have time for a lecture.” I pushed myself toward him. “I know you can send me right to Warthor. You are the keeper of all the gateways to all the worlds. I need to find him, and I don’t care what his game is. I’m going to get Mattoc back even if I need to kill Warthor Ein and every last dragon out there to do it.”
Zef turned and waved his hand absently as if to disregard me. “I remember a long time ago I got an electric shaver. It wasn’t a very good shaver and if I let my beard grow for more than one day, it wouldn’t cut at all. I had to use it like…” he counted on his fingers for a moment, “every twelve hours for it to work. Yet, for some reason, I kept it around because it was self-cleaning.”
Without so much as an explanation to his story, he walked back to his chair and took a seat before the fire. He waved his hand casually. “What have I told you? Answer and I will consider allowing you passage.”
“Erm,” I started, completely and utterly confused. What did I care about his stupid shaver?
Zef turned to look at me, one large, sad eye staring blankly at me as though it expected very little and wanted to see even less.
“I think that you are referring to the weak link in a chain.” Zef looked back at the fire as I spoke. “However,” I continued, “I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. When you want to do something specific and the way you are going about it is flawed, then the fruits gained from it will be flawed.”
“Exactly.” There was a small commotion as Zef rocked himself in a chair incapable of rocking. “This is why you should have come to me at the beginning. Perhaps then you would understand the one truth about the situation Warthor has set upon you like a pack of wild dogs.” He laughed to himself as though the whole thing was a joke. “If yo
u destroy him, you will also destroy the anchor that holds his dragon, Trius, to our plane. Without his Dragon Knight, Trius will not be able to remain here any longer. In short, if you disrupt his seat of power, Valen will win.” He rose and waved off his train of thought.
“A thousand apologies,” I said quietly. “I should have come to you sooner.”
“I don’t want your apologies. I don’t care. No one is counting on a doddering old man to do anything important.” He pointed to a large door that manifested itself quite suddenly. It was opaque and yet a vague translucence hung about it, distorting its features into an appreciable mystery.
“Now then,” he added, “it is time to bite, pup. The time for barking has ended.”
30
Zef led me to a set of doors made from wood the color of soot and bound with silver and gold bars. With an almost casual indifference, he placed the palm of his left hand against them. There was a crimson flash, and they opened to reveal great caverns of opalescent purple and blue glass. Colors swam through the slick walls while water dripped from iridescent stalactites. Nothing here was coarse and rough, but rather smooth and delicate, as though no man had ever been here before.
The walls glittered with flecks of silver from incandescent algae. In the center of the massive cavern a crystalline fountain flowed with pale water. Zef grinned and produced a book from his robes.
It was an old book, perhaps even older than Zef himself, bound with strips of cured leather. Instead of seeming barbaric, it seemed ancient, and Zef, with eyes burning like springtime dandelions, seemed even older.
“I can only send you into the nether. I cannot guide you to Warthor once you are there,” he stated flatly. “Rhapsody, the White Queen, can help you with that.” His eyes narrowed, and he turned to face me. “Do try to ask her nicely.”
That would have to be enough. While I’d never met Rhapsody, I was sure she had to be better than Zef, and Zef was helping me. Right? Right.
There was a loud popping sound as he put one hand on my forehead and pushed. Scintillating light exploded in front of my eyes as the horizon burst into view, electrified with a million different colors all vying for dominance. Ever changing shades of sand rolled listlessly, pausing occasionally to crash against the jutting cliffs on which I now stood. Alone.
This was the gateway to the nether. If I jumped, I’d be able to find Warthor. I nervously tucked a loose strand of lavender hair behind my ear and took a deep breath. Then I shut my eyes and leapt from the cliff.
The ground swelled up around me like warm water, and I held my breath. I kicked, swimming downward through the sand until I felt the roots of a tree. I grabbed hold of them and yanked, pulling myself free of the sand and arriving with a plop on the other side. The ground beneath me solidified, and I shook the sand from my hair and clothes.
The massive tree wobbled like jelly next to me as I stumbled to my feet, my fingers pressing on its flaky white bark. In the branches high above, red apple-like fruit the size of my head shimmered like jack-o'-lanterns with lit candles inside. I scanned the horizon and spotted a small girl with long, blood-red hair walking toward me.
Steam poured off of her olive skin, and a cruel smile was painted onto her ruby-red lips. She took a quick step forward and flung her left arm outward, throwing back a silver overcoat to reveal two sheathed swords slung lopsided about her waist.
Her lips parted, and her voice cascaded outward like crashing waters, rumbling like thunder. I took a step back and gulped. I had heard this voice before. It was the voice of Rhapsody, The White Queen. Remember what I said before about getting her to help me? Well, right now, I really hoped she did because at the moment I was freaking terrified.
“There was darkness in the night, and the wind scorched the earth. In that night there was emptiness and sorrow and a thousand upon thousand curses. In that night there was but one solace, that the dawn would come and put the night to death beneath its blade. For centuries upon centuries that night was silhouetted behind the day, never leaving, never ending.” She moved one hand toward the hilts of her blades, her eyes blazing like twin suns. “For all this time we waited, hiding inside the vast network of emptiness, fearing what we knew would come, a time when the bad spirits would seek to enter into marriage with those sworn to destroy them.”
She moved, her body arcing through the air like lightning, crossing the distance between us. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even grip Haijiku in the time it had taken for this six-year-old girl to close the gap between us and put the tip of her blade to my throat.
It was a blade of the darkest obsidian, and it stayed there for many moments, unmoving, unforgiving. With one, exaggerated movement the girl raised her right hand, extended her index finger, and placed it in the center of my chest.
“Boom,” she said, and as she did, the scenery evaporated.
I found myself standing in blank emptiness. There was nothing around me, nothing but a white stretching out in every direction. I shivered and rubbed my arms, the sight of so much nothing chilled me to the core because it made me feel very small and insignificant. I took a deep breath, but it caught in my throat when I noticed the kneeling form of a girl next to me.
She looked to be about my age, and she looked… familiar. She stood slowly, in a flutter of purple robes, and pulled off a Chinese-style hat. Brilliant lavender locks flooded down around her shoulders, and I took a surprised step backward.
“Dirge?” Her name slipped out of my mouth as I struggled to orient myself to this mind-blowing reality. I was actually seeing Dirge. How was that possible?
She seemed not to hear me call her name, or if she did, she ignored it. Instead, she looked off into the distance. I turned to see what she was looking at and nearly screamed. It was the same girl from before. It was Rhapsody, The White Queen.
“What do you want, Miss Meilan? What do you want that I can give you?” Rhapsody spoke, and it was the voice of a cacophony.
“Why can I not see you?” Dirge called, her opaque, white eyes searching frantically for something to focus on. “Why have you left me?”
“If you have eyes to see, you will know I have always been with you, Dirge,” Rhapsody said, her voice lashing out like a whip as she spoke. “It is you who is not always with me, but I am used to that.”
“Where am I?” Dirge turned in a slow circle, her robes brushing the toe of my shoe. I took a step back as my mind was blown again. Dirge had spoken with Rhapsody after she’d died? I hadn’t known that.
“You are in the seat of judgment,” Rhapsody said, gesturing about herself. “It is from this place alone that a soul can be reborn into the world.”
“I don’t understand.” Dirge shook her head and screwed up her face in concentration. “I have already made my choice. I chose to stay dead. I chose to join Mattoc in Hell when he could not be reborn along with me. Why am I here again?”
Wait, no. Was she saying what I think she was saying? Was she really saying she chose to stay in Hell because Mattoc could not be reborn? Seriously?
No, that didn’t make sense. While I couldn’t remember everything that had happened during Dirge’s life, I was pretty sure something important enough to make her want to stay in Hell with him would have made an impression. Only it hadn’t. Why?
“Warthor Ein is determined to bring you back, Miss Meilan. And he will not bring just you back, but he will blow open the gates and bring back the entirety of Hell with you.” Rhapsody shook her head sadly. “His adoration for you is touching, truly. I tried to tell him you refused the offer before, but he seems insistent.”
“Warthor always did think he knew best,” Dirge said, and my heart thumped so hard I was sure it would explode. This was the moment when Warthor defied the gods, but why was the White Queen showing it to me? “Are you telling me this because I can stop this?”
“Zef has assured me that if you are no longer dead, Warthor will no longer do this evil thing. In short, if you submit to reincarnation, you will effe
ctively keep Hell closed for eternity. Will you take this chance to leave Hell and step through the doors of resurrection?” Rhapsody gestured, and as she did, a door made of polished silver and lined with golden filigree appeared beside her. It happened so suddenly, I could hardly believe it. I wasn’t quite sure where that door led, but I had the sneaking suspicion the moment Dirge stepped through it, my birth would be set in motion.
Still there was one thing still bugging me. “Why did Dirge go to Hell? She was a hero.”
The scene froze, and the White Queen turned toward me and smiled. “You should ask yourself that question. Dirge determined where she would go when she died. She chose to step into Hell. She would not leave Hisen Mattoc to suffer his fate alone. Even after they both perished, she would not leave him.”
“I… I don’t remember,” I said and couldn’t keep the sadness out of my voice. I really did want to remember this particular bit, felt I ought to remember it. I had a thousand stupid, inconsequential memories, and I couldn’t remember this one thing? It hardly seemed fair.
“Unsurprising. You shouldn’t remember anything.” The girl turned back to Dirge, and the scene resumed. “If you leave Hell, you must leave Mattoc. You must return to the world alone.”
“Mattoc must come back with me.” Dirge crossed her arms.
“Mattoc cannot come,” Rhapsody replied.
“I made a promise to Hisen Mattoc. I will not break the promise to the one person who brought me back from oblivion during my life. If I must defy death, he must defy death as well. I will not leave him behind in Hell alone. I will not.” Dirge began to walk away. “If that is your final answer, please send me back and take your chances with Warthor.”
“If Mattoc comes with you, he will be with you forever. You must be ready to accept great changes. You will not be able to be reborn after this time.” Rhapsody sighed. “Is that something you can accept?”
The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3 Page 19