A Prayer of Dusk and Fury

by D Elias Jenkins

  "Are you...are you real? Are you an illusion?"

  Cassandra took a step forward, her bare feet slapping wetly against the stone floor. Oligan stared into her eyes for some flicker of familiarity. But instead of his three girl's twinkling blue eyes, there were only pools of inky black. Cassandra gave him a little nod. She blinked once and the nictitating membrane of some new inner eyelid shut from the side. Yet the smile she offered was as he remembered, wry and raised at one side, both cheeky and loving at the same time.

  "I am as real as you are, my husband. We are awake for you, to take away your loneliness."

  The king's eldest daughter Elena gave him a little wave and giggle. Her black fish eyes betraying none of the emotion in her expression.

  "We didn't like seeing you cry, father, we wanted to see you and we are sorry for never answering when you spoke to us. We wanted to play with you and sit on your knee. We wanted you to be our father again."

  Oligan looked to his wife and daughters, steam rising from their mottled skin carrying the stench of drowned bodies left to float. He became aware that he was maskless and a wave of shame washed over him. He tried to hide his ruined face with one hand and turn his head from them.

  "You...still recognise me? You are not afraid of me? Repulsed?"

  Cassandra took a jerky step forward and reached out her fingers. The fingertips brushed Oligan's scarred face, from cheekbone to chin. Their clammy softness smelled of swamp. The touch sent crackling energy through his entire body and his good eye shed a tear. The fingertips brushed his ruined skin. Cassandra moved her hand across and brushed the tear from his cheek. She held her had up before her eyes and the tiny droplet glistened upon her fingertip. Then she placed it on her lips and kissed it into her mouth.

  "Oligan, you are beautiful to us. You are more handsome now in your ruin than the arrogant boy who tried to woo me, with his rouge and powder on his unblemished face. Your suffering and downfall is beautiful. Where we have been, these years away from you, husband, has a very different idea of beauty. A sweeter notion."

  The tears welled again, and he thought that his legs might give. His mind was only accepting the possibility that any of this was happening.

  "But where have you been, Cassandra? I have watched you and the girls in your tombs for years, and you have never moved a muscle."

  Cassandra let her head sink back and smiled. Her glossy, almost-black lips parting like slugs.

  "We have been in paradise, Oligan. We have seen such wonders and sights; we do not have the words to describe. The beauty of decay, the intimacy of sharing suffering, whole choirs of anguish. We have seen the world as it will be, when the Green King spills through and washes over this world like a deluge."

  His daughter spoke in a small voice.

  "We cannot wait to show you father. To show you everything."

  Oligan looked at his family. He thought of all the long, lonely nights he had sat before them in their transparent tomb. As he told them of the world changing around them and how he would wait on them forever. Now, after all these years, they were here. They were changed yes, but who would not be changed after such a long sleep? They had over many years received nourishment from the reliquary. Day after day of it saturating into their mortal bodies. Oligan received but a droplet a month in a ritual, and even his form had altered over the years. He had to expect some changes, he told himself. But families change together. The tears flowed and he sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around his three girls and drawing them in close.

  Their mucous covered bodies stained his white robes and the stench of them assaulted his nostrils. But Oligan did not care. He relished their solidity, the clammy warmth of their skin and the steady beating of their hearts. They were real, corporeal, alive and here in his arms.

  "Oh my girls! My beautiful lost girls! I knew that there was no extinguishing our blood from this world. We have so much to catch up with."

  He looked up into the black soulless eyes of his wife and daughters.

  "The world is changing Cassandra, all around us, and many will die or be sacrificed. But we endure, don't we? Our family endures, and we will watch the world change from our high tower here. We will let the sunlight spill in, no more darkness. We will rule as we have always ruled."

  Cassandra put a glutinous hand on the back on Oligan's head and stroked his hair. He closed his eyes and nestled his forehead into her sagging grey breasts. He was lost in a reverie, his lop sided smile ugly on his ruined mouth. His wife comforted him as he wept.

  "But husband, the real king has awoken, the Green King, and he has come to rule us all with such mercy and wisdom. We can rest now, my love, we can endure and give up the burden of rule."

  Oligan opened his eyes against her skin. He looked up at her with an imploring gaze.

  "Awoken?"

  Cassandra smiled down at him and stroked his face.

  "Yes, darling, he has risen from his dreams and brought us with him as his heralds. He has given me and the girls such wonderful tasks to perform. We will be busier than we have ever been. And so will you, Oligan. Your part is not finished yet, you have so much still to do."

  Oligan heard a low rumble from the reliquary behind his family. He stood, feeling the pain in his knees, and stepped aside. His wife smiled at him and stepped back, allowing him to approach the thick glass of the vessel.

  The vibrations from it had grown stronger, reverberating through his skin.

  Oligan stared at the maelstrom swirling within, thick and deep green. Marred with strips and morsels of flesh and dirt from the many sacrifices of Magus Hearts offered over the decades.

  He placed his forehead on the warm glass, droplets of moisture and condensation on his skin.

  Thank you. Thank you for giving my family back to me, for rewarding my loyalty. Is our work not over now? Can we not rest and find comfort?

  Oligan opened his eyes and peered into the swirling fog. Something moved within. With a shaking hand he reached up and wiped the condensation from the glass. He narrowed his eyes and peered deeper inside, his heart thumping.

  Then he saw it.

  It was vague at first, just a disruption in the movement of the vapours, a shape created by displacement of the fog.

  Then it began to edge forward and Oligan's jaw dropped in fear and awe.

  Something darted to and fro in the murk, an oval as big as Oligan's head. It came closer to the glass, regarding him with curiosity. Heavy lidded and flecked with gold and green, it blinked and then fixed his gaze.

  It was a single eye, opened for the first time in a thousand years. Oligan fell to his knees, his hand sliding down the dewy glass. He looked up at the vast container he had spent so long constructing, an incubator for a dreaming god.

  Oligan felt alone. There were no brothers of vicissitude in the sanctum, no close advisor like Merrick Clay. There was only his revenant family. Staring at him with black eyes. And a woken general of the Sorrow, peering out at him with one ancient eye.

  King Oligan Rathratta let his head fall back and he wept.

  I will rot in chains in the darkest chamber of the underworld, for committing such crimes out of love. I shall be punished for love for all time.

  He looked around and the clammy, drowned hand of his queen came to rest upon his shoulder.

  10

  Alfred followed Invar along the corridor. Lanterns lined the walls in high brackets and Alfred noticed that fat insects were bobbing about within on whizzing wings, batting off the glass. Their abdomens glowed bright orange from the sorcery within.

  “Master Invar, are those cinderflies?”

  Invar nodded.

  “Yes, from the islands far to the south. They only glow like that in the presence of magic. And there is no shortage of that this deep in the monastery.”

  Alfred tapped a fingernail on the glass of one lantern as he passed. The handful of insects within grew brighter and their wings hummed. He frowned as he hurried after the long strides of Invar.


  Invar stopped and turned, looking down at Alfred with a furrowed brow.

  “You have only met a very few of the people sheltering here at Ironghast. Most like to keep to themselves. However, some of the living things we have rescued and that reside here are too dangerous or too wild to be allowed to roam its halls. ”

  Alfred felt his throat constrict a little.

  “The monks that were brought to the infirmary, when I first arrived.”

  Invar gave a low rumble in his throat.

  “Hmm, yes. One thing in particular. A beast that is particularly troublesome and a thorn in my side. But I will show you that last.”

  Alfred hesitantly followed Invar as the passage broadened out into a wide hexagonal chamber. A stone shaft in the domed ceiling allowed light to cast down from high above. Along its walls were thick doors etched with Old Vassonian script. Invar glanced askance at Alfred as he stepped into the chamber.

  “You can read the blessings etched into the stone doors?”

  Alfred narrowed his eyes and cast his gaze across the chamber.

  “Yes…they are prayers of binding in Old Vassonian. Each one is different, according to what lies inside. They are there to subdue the natural sorcery of the thing within? If I read it correctly.”

  Invar stepped up to the closest door. He slid back the heavy metal grate and gestured for Alfred to look within. Alfred walked forward and stood on his tiptoes to peer inside. The cell was dimly lit by a cinderfly lantern and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Then Alfred saw a pair of fierce yellow eyes staring out at him from the dark and he jumped back. As he stared, something crept out of the gloom towards the door of the cell. It was humanoid of a sort but the skin was bright red. Several spiny crests bristled on its bald skull like a thorned crown. The mouth was far wider than a man’s and was filled with serrated fangs. It crawled forward on all fours in a disturbingly graceful manner and then jumped up on its bed and sat like a scarlet ape staring out at Alfred. Alfred was mesmerised.

  “What is it? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Invar moved in behind Alfred and nodded at the creature. As Alfred observed the being, it craned its neck forward and the yellow eyes flashed bright. A forked red tongue snaked from its mouth. The spell on the door glowed in unison.

  Alfred took a wary step back.

  “What’s it doing?”

  Invar tapped the metal grate with his gloved hand.

  “It’s a basilisk. It’s trying to petrify you.”

  Alfred felt a shiver up his spine. The creature was staring at him so intensely and with a hungry gleam in its golden eyes.

  “It’s succeeding.”

  Invar growled.

  “No I mean it really is trying to petrify you so it can eat you. The way the Magus works with them, it’s how they hunt. Their magic is manifest in their eyes. They project…something. It seizes the muscles of other living things so they cannot move. As if administered a poison. Then they eat you while you are incapacitated. But conscious, and able to feel everything. So I am told.”

  Alfred slowly stepped back from the door and stared at Invar until he shut the grate.

  “Thank you for telling me. They’re not…local to here, are they?”

  “No. They’re native to the far south eastern isles, called the Red Teeth. Not sure how this one ended up in Vassonia. But we have a duty to protect all magical creatures, dangerous or not. We do not like to keep anything caged, but we give them such comfort as we can. The only other option for such things is extinction and being fed to the Great Sorrow in Oligan’s tower.”

  Alfred had no love for the creature inside the cell, it terrified him. But he also felt sorry for it. To be something so hunted simply for the sorcerous second heart that dwelled within it. To be alone, without kin. Alfred knew that feeling only too well. And he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness towards the red skinned beast, and everything else in the world that had magic in its blood.

  “Is this what we fight for, Invar? For the right to exist.”

  Invar grunted.

  “Aye lad, it is. Our world is held together by deep old magic. The Sorrow would consume every drop of it. From the sea, the earth, and the heart of every creature. Once it is gone, our world will crumble. Like dry soil. And it is to the doom of every living thing, whether it has sorcery in its blood or not. You and others like you are to be its protectors. If you survive the tasks ahead, that is.”

  Alfred walked to the next cell and peered through the grate.

  “That one in there will be familiar to you.”

  Alfred looked into the cell and saw a lizard as big as a wolf. Its iridescent scales were all the colours of the rainbow. When it saw Alfred staring at it, the reptile swished its great tail. As if bellows had been squeezed into a furnace, every scale on the creature’s body glowed like molten rock. Alfred could feel the heat wafting out at him and stinging his eyes. The script on the door glowed golden as it tempered and subdued the sorcery from the lizard.

  Alfred turned his head from the heat.

  “It’s a salamander!”

  Invar nodded with a smile.

  “One of the sacred beasts of Lord Angall himself. The fire lizards burn with his holy light in their blood though they do not know it.”

  Alfred looked back at the giant lizard and shook his head.

  “I have seen countless such beasts engraved into pillars and depicted in coloured windows. But they come not within a hundred miles of capturing the beauty of that light.”

  Invar slid the grate across. His face was serious.

  “Now let’s go deeper. Down those stairs ahead is another creature I want to show you. One that will fill you with as much dread as the salamander did wonder.”

  Alfred rubbed his smarting eyes and looked across at a staircase that descended into the dark.

  “If you say so, master Invar.”

  Alfred stood at the top of the dark stairwell, looking down into the gloom. He could see no end to the winding steps, but he could smell a warm breeze rising up that carried the stench of death. He turned to Invar.

  "What’s down there, Invar?"

  The old man glared down the winding steps and frowned.

  "Something rare, something dangerous. Something which has plagued my life for longer than I can remember. But something that unfortunately we might need. "

  Alfred tried to calm his fluttering heart, but his instincts were telling him not to descend. Invar held up a torch and beckoned him forward. The shadows danced on the stone walls as they moved ever downwards. And the only sounds were the old man's heavy breathing and the crackling of the torch. Invar spoke over his shoulder in clipped tones as they descended.

  "Do not stand too close to the bars, no less than a man's reach. Understood?"

  Alfred nodded, keen to take in every safety precaution, but his head was swimming with fear. The old man continued as they moved deeper into the bowels of the rock chimney on which Ironghast stood. It felt like they were moving into older chambers hewn in another age.

  "Do not address it, do not let it address you, and do not answer its questions. It will get inside your mind."

  Alfred swallowed hard, and noticed that the reek of flesh and death was becoming stronger.

  "My mind?"

  Invar nodded.

  "The monks you saw, their injuries were grave, but they got careless during feeding time. I have seen monks do much worse to themselves after talking with it. It had detected their every fear and driven them mad. More than one over the years has leapt from the highest tower."

  Alfred stopped in his tracks.

  "But Invar, you said you have spent long nights outside the cell conversing, for decades you said! Why has it not driven you mad?"

  Invar glanced behind him and gave Alfred an intense glittering stare. And looked every inch a lunatic. Alfred's guts turned to water and he almost turned and ran back up the stairs. Invar gave him a dark smile a
nd they continued.

  "Not everything we keep here at the Monastery is kind and virtuous, and not everything a force for good. But every magical race has a right to defend its existence against that which would seek to eradicate it. And our quarry qualifies for that."

  Alfred walked behind Invar and could not see his face, hooded as he was. But he could hear the grimace in his voice as he spoke. Alfred's voice sounded small in the stairwell.

  "You seem to know this being intimately, Invar?"

  "I do, and I am...conflicted."

  "Conflicted?"

  Invar huffed and shook his head beneath his cowl.

  "Guilt at my part in its current predicament, disgust that such a monster yet lives, but aware that my fate is forever linked to it. We are almost there, shield your thoughts and do not look it in the eyes."

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in a short corridor before a heavy metal door. Invar took out a key from his robes and turned it in the lock. It echoed in the gloom.

  "The door is a metal that is found close to the strongest seams of sorcery, called slowiron, do you know it? They say the gods brought it to our world with them. It enhances and absorbs magic, its responds to runes when painted on its surface, and nothing I know of can bend or break it. We constructed this cell from it, as a precaution."

  Alfred took a deep breath as the door grated open. The reek of blood hit him now and it took all his willpower to step inside. He felt Invar's hand on his back and before he knew it he was standing in a large chamber hewn from solid rock. There was a bench against one wall. A water bucket. Some scraps of rotting meat on the floor. And a couple of the subterranean grub lanterns hanging either side of the door. Which offered only a dim light to the far end.

  Invar held up his torch and there was a second chamber in the opposite wall. Covered with thick bars in the same metal as the door they had walked through.

  Alfred stood there shaking and sweating. He narrowed his eyes but could not penetrate beyond the bars. Behind him, Invar placed the flickering torch into a bracket on the wall.

  Past the bars, Alfred could hear something large breathing, like a patient predator.