by Aaron Bunce
“Right, right, right. Yes, yes…most definitely. Yes, I agree. Surely, tending for sure,” the woman erupted, signaling the end of the brief conversation.
Sayer flashed Dennah a quick look, a crooked and fairly innocent smile playing across his face, but then he was gone, following his surly companion out into the hall. Dennah settled onto the bed, tugging uncomfortably at her shirt, which now felt woefully inadequate.
The woman walked in, an enthusiastic bounce in her step. She looked Dennah up and down for a long moment, her face locked in an unreadable mask.
Her eyes were blue, and she squinted despite the building’s dark interior. She had a slight blush to her cheeks, giving her a rather jolly appearance.
“Alright…well, let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” she said finally, after sizing her up.
“And then what…” Dennah flinched, pulling her arms in close and jumping back on the bed.
The woman scoffed, her hands dropping to her hips. “Dear, you look and smell like you’ve been living in a barn. First, I should think a hot bath, and then some new clothes. After that we’ll get some food in you.”
Chapter 15
Forgotten Ways
Nephera sat in the last row in the farthest corner of the audience chamber. The large room and its cathedral ceiling caused the voices to echo endlessly, but she wasn’t really listening. Instead, she was watching, and waiting.
The Council sat around their large ornate table and argued for what felt like hours. They didn’t pay attention to the crowd of Ban Turin commoners and merchants that had gathered in audience. She knew they were not concerned with their interests, or those of the other council members for that matter. Each man seated around the table was concerned only with their own holdings and gains, save for one.
Nephera watched Gladeus as he sat perched up on his intricate, gold chair. To those in attendance he simply looked groggy, bored even, like a detached child at lesson. Occasionally he would rub his eyes and wipe his sweaty face with a cloth from his robes. But on the occasion when he would speak, it was what she willed him to say.
“We cannot protect our borders without more soldiers!” Lord Russo growled in protest. His son, Kirwan Russo, held seat in New Dilith, and presided over the southern regions known as the Dagger Coast.
“More soldiers! Above what the numbers Lord Kingsbreath, Lord Strongside, and the rest of us have standing? How will the Council pay these men when you can’t pay your own? The treasury is empty, what do you propose we pay them with, textiles?” Lord Thatcher growled back.
“More tax. When the tax caravans return, we send them right back out!” Lord Russo countered, and at that the audience was stirred into an uproar.
Try as she might to suppress it, a smirk crested her lip as she watched the angry petitioners rant while the councilmen bickered. She could have stood and thrown off her cloak to reveal herself and her intentions; it was doubtful any in attendance would even notice her.
Gladeus harrumphed and blinked rapidly before interrupting, “Sirs…sirs. We, uh, gain nothing by this argument.”
Gladeus DuChamp, uncle of Tomas, the Earl of Barden’s Reach, and Head Designee of the Council of Lords looked thinner than he had in many winter thaws. Unbeknownst to most, his health had improved recently, if only because Nephera needed her figurehead to play his part in a believable fashion, and she no longer needed him to feed.
Nephera guided the councilman, supplanting his own scattered and worthless thoughts with her own. She worked to diffuse the worst of the quarrels between the men in power, as it would do her no good if their differences devolved into conflict, or worse, violence. It was all the same worthless noise to her. She would keep them focused on each other—to squabble over missing livestock, gold, and land disputes.
Things had progressed slowly since arriving in the capitol. With little need for sleep she kept herself busy day and night, traipsing through the shadows of the city, pulling and cutting at the frayed bonds of order. She pulled the heavy robes into her body and moved to adjust the hood now covering her head. Her body, which had been slowly shifting and changing, forced her to take such measure of concealment. She could only imagine how those seated around her would respond if they saw her. Even the thought of their fear sent a tickle of excitement coursing through her body.
Beneath the soft, pale skin covering her body churned the immense pool of power she had collected. It pulsed and shrunk, straining against her physical body, willfully changing her. She knew that she could not keep it contained indefinitely. At some point it would tear even her apart.
She longed to channel it towards those that had betrayed her. She wanted to look them in the eye, and hear their pitiful excuses, and then she would remind them of the cruel ways of this world, and the truth that lies only in power and order. After all, this world was rightfully hers, for she was highest of the Nym.
Power cannot be granted, nor inherited. It can only be taken through force of deed, or by strength of pure will. To take dominion over the weak and establish order in all things…yes, the truest order. She thought, considering the eldest doctrine of her kind.
Yes, these people would think her harsh, and their ways absolute and unyielding, just as they should.
Nephera guided Gladeus through the next forum of the Council’s proceedings, even allowing the elder councilman a bit more of his faculties than she otherwise might. She watched as the man’s eyes fluttered open and closed before shaking his head for a moment. As she opened herself up to manipulate Gladeus she felt a small gap form in her resolve. One just large enough for the girl buried deep inside of her to find voice.
It was a strange sensation, one that caused her body to shiver slightly, but it was frigid outside and anyone looking would just blame it on a draft. The girl sounded soft at first, and she admired her strength as she persisted. Eisa’s thoughts roared from inside, catapulting thoughts of a brother, no, two brothers, forcibly into Nephera’s consciousness. There was a father too, and two men…two men and a white-skinned monster. A vision of blood and viscera flashed to mind.
Nephera shivered again and chuckled quietly as she forced the girl’s will back down below. She reveled in the irony as she cast an eye up to the darkened rafters of the Council’s chambers, where the impatient form of that very same durjj hovered, just out of sight.
She named you, she thought. How fitting!
Nephera felt another sensation ripple through her body, yet it was not the girl this time. This sensation elicited an entirely different emotion, one she had been waiting patiently for since reawakening. It felt like a hundred different voices whispering to her all at once. These were not as she had known them before; they were so much stronger now. They were close!
Compelled from her seat by these new sensations, and infinitely bored with the proceedings, Nephera rose and glided toward the chamber’s rear exit. She walked between a pair of armor-clad soldiers standing in the doorway. They exchanged bored glances as the councilmen continued to argue with the collected audience.
The two men towered over her, with heavy armor, sharp swords and strong arms, but she knew that she could dominate them with the ease of a thought, or crush the life from their body with a simple word of power. They didn’t even spare her a second glance as she passed them by, like a whisper of death on a passing breeze. She turned, letting her gaze drift up into the dark rafters above the councilmen’s heads, and extended her consciousness toward the durjj waiting patiently. It stirred in response.
The others are close. Fetch suitable appointments, steal them from the fighting men if you must, she thought, conveying her instructions.
Nephera ducked outside, moving around the large building. She stayed as close to the stone structure as she could to avoid the wind, confident that her needs were in capable hands.
Snow fluttered down, drifting lazily to the ground until a gust caught it, plastering it against her face and robes. She didn’t mind the cold; it was only a minor nu
isance compared to the people bustling all about her.
Her determined steps brought her to one of the massive arched bridges spanning the dark void of the river. The wind roared on the bridge, ripping and tearing against her body like the clawed hands of two competing ogres. She pushed through it without another thought, although in another age she might have expended a little energy to tame the wind, even if just for an easier passing.
As Nephera stepped off onto the opposite side of the river a form appeared in the gray glow of the desolate winter afternoon. It appeared as little more than a dark blur contrasted against a bleak sky, spanning high into the air, but she knew it was far more.
She quickened her step, zigzagging through a small cluster of shoppers huddled around a merchant’s cart. Most bickered loudly, squabbling over price as they scooped up armloads of firewood or filled jugs from a large barrel of lamp oil.
“Hey you…” one of the merchants called out, his cap nearly flying from his head as he tried to get Nephera’s attention. She ignored him and pushed on toward her goal.
Beyond the river and its clustered merchant stalls and storefronts, Ban Turin’s streets and alleyways thinned out, until finally, as Nephera rounded a corner, she was alone. The thoroughfare opened up straight ahead, affording her an unobscured view of the monolithic tower at the city’s heart.
Nephera felt a thrill course through her every time she saw it. For her it was far more than a relic or a monument. For her it was a little piece of something long ago forfeited, but soon to be reclaimed. It was a piece of her home.
Nephera thought her eyes were deceiving her the first time she saw it. She had sifted through Gladeus’ memories, trying to reclaim a little of her homeland’s fate after the time darkness claimed her. Unfortunately she found that the city’s current residents knew surprisingly little about the structure they built their capitol city around, and even less about what lay beneath their feet.
The sky darkened as she approached the tower, its form effectively blocking out a large portion of the sky above her. She advanced slowly, reverentially. Her eyes went instinctively to the sky, and then traced the structure’s graceful and sweeping form all the way to the ground.
Nephera crouched down, sliding lithesome to her knees. Her hands walked out like spiders, gliding across the well-formed stone Ban Turin’s builders had lain beneath her feet. They reached the end of the last stone, ending abruptly and giving way to the dark, jagged stone beneath. Nephera traced the bubbled rock with a finger, considering every pore and variation of the molten stone so long bereft of its heat.
She ran her finger over the flowing rock until it gave way to the glass-smooth stone of the tower. She pressed her palm against the flawless surface and closed her eyes. For a moment, Nephera considered the cold structure beneath her palm, but more importantly the portion of it she could no longer see. She pictured the tower as it extended beneath her, and her once immaculate city, now encased in a massive layer of volcanic stone.
She pushed her thoughts and feelings into the substantial structure, and almost instantly felt it start to hum in response. The tower, so long dormant, so long without a heart or a purpose, was beginning to wake. The chorus of voices was stronger now than she had ever heard it. Their voices had grown so forceful that she expected to see them materializing out of the shadows all around her. But she knew that they would not. They wouldn’t risk that much. Not this early.
Nephera stood as a boot scuffed against the stone. It reverberated from around the corner. Several heartbeats passed before a lone figure appeared around a lamp post. That solitary figure stepped forward quietly, and then another materialized from the opposite end of the courtyard. Nephera stepped back as the waifs walked out in the open.
“What you doing, love? Why you crawling about like that on the ground?” the first man asked, his hand sliding up to pull the tattered cap from his head.
Nephera felt irritation gnaw at her insides. At any other time she would have welcomed the opportunity these men presented, but now, when she felt another part of her come to life, their presence was simply burdensome. They had rudely interrupted her reverie.
With a side-long glance down the courtyard, and then a glance down the other, Nephera turned to the first man. She smiled, her radiant green eyes surging with a sudden and intense light. The first man’s face went suddenly slack, while his hand went limp, letting the tattered cap slip to the ground.
“I think there is something you can do for me,” she said, letting her thoughts bore into the man’s mind. He put up very little fight. His companion walked up beside him, a half-crazed half-starved look upon his face.
“Aw, she’s a sweet one,” he said without looking away from Nephera.
I don’t like your friend. Kill him. Nephera thought and turned to walk back along the tower. She heard the man’s friend jabbering, but his sickly laugh died away and then the courtyard was filled with the sound of scraping boots and cries of pain. A moment later the first man limped up and fell into step behind her.
She turned down a small alleyway between the tower and the dark stone building next to it. She let her fingertips drag along the dark stone. She could feel the energy building inside of it, rising like a crescendo of chanting voices.
Nephera staggered forward and had to catch herself as the chorus almost overwhelmed her. She turned and looked to the young waif waiting expectantly behind her. He wavered slightly, a drunken smile plastered on his grimy face. Blood spattered his leather overcoat, and his trousers had been ripped wide, a seeping gash was visible in the poor light.
“They are here!” Nephera whispered in ecstasy. The waif smiled hollowly, echoing the excitement simmering inside of her.
Eagerly, Nephera threw her head back and scanned the tower’s dark length until she spotted it. Perched high above the ground was a solitary, narrow balcony. The opening sat at a substantial height, and with no foot holds with which to climb, it appeared to be effectively out of reach. Nephera watched a solitary bird soar by on the cold, buffeting wind currents and she couldn’t help by smile.
She pulled the cowl back and allowed the heavy cloak to fall to the ground. The wind whipped up through her onyx colored hair, exposing the curved horns she had been forced to conceal until now.
“Thank you,” she said to the waif, reaching out and taking by the hand. “But I need something else from you.” The young man smiled and nodded simply, and then his body began to shake.
Her eyes flared suddenly and the air was filled with a strange sound, like the crackling of dry twigs under foot. She felt the heat build in her hands and then the deluge of life as she pulled the young man’s vitality from his body. He groaned and staggered, but she would not let him cry out.
“It will be over quickly,” she purred and closed her eyes. Nephera narrowed her focus, and used every ounce of life she pulled from the young man’s body to enact the changes to her own. She felt her muscles tingle and grow tight and her bones vibrate as they started to split apart. She felt white-hot pain as the flesh of her back opened up suddenly.
The bones that broke apart grew in length as ligaments sprouted and fused them together. Muscles crawled forth, drawn into place by appendages made of grasping tendons. The flesh on her back closed once again, inching its way up to cover the newly formed bone and muscle.
Nephera felt the changes slow as the energy flow wavered, and then it was gone. She opened her eyes and blinked away the tears. She stretched her fingers, breaking loose the waif’s desiccated flesh and muscles that had shrunken around her hands. She released her grip, letting his body fall. It rattled against the frozen ground like dry bark.
Pulling her gaze away from the waif’s ruined body, Nephera glanced skyward once again. She stretched her arms out to her side and let the newly formed wings unfurl behind her. She felt the muscle and tendons pop as the fleshy membrane pulled tight. She reveled in the sensation as she flexed the mighty appendages, driving them towards the ground and s
ending the dried corpse bouncing away.
No more hiding, she thought, watching a bird circle high overhead. With a snort of pure joy, Nephera leapt into the air and drove her wings down. She reached forward, coiling her wings and driving them down again. She rose and fell back awkwardly at first, but after just a few moments her instincts returned. The air rushed over her and for the first time in centuries she felt like herself.
Nephera streaked through the frozen air, and with one final, massive surge from her wings, she reached the high balcony on the tower’s outer wall. She eased down onto the dark surface, and begrudgingly folded her new wings. The wind wailed around her, moving with determination and ferocity now that it was not impeded by the buildings. Nephera stepped to the very edge of the balcony and let her toes curl over the lip as she knelt to take in the city.
Our time again…at last, our time again, she thought triumphantly in a long overdue moment of victory. The tower vibrated beneath her, beckoning her deeper. She spun and leapt into the darkness.
“Rierda flara,” she whispered and a spark ignited in her outstretched palm. Nephera moved to the back of the dark room, letting the magical flare light her way. She stepped forward and pressed her palm lightly against the large ornate doors and pushed. The monstrous construct slid open effortlessly.
A light flared in the darkness before her as Nephera stepped into the tower’s interior. Another light flared, and then another as graceful, round lamps glowed to life. She watched the lights ripple into the darkness, streaking down in a seemingly endless spiral. The tower rumbled and then the lamps glowed brighter yet, filling the dark monolith with warm, inviting life.
“I am home!” Nephera cried out, her voice twisting and worming into every crack and crevice in the onyx stone. She stepped forward and threw her feet over the railing, casting her body over the sheer drop. She fell, the endless floors of the dark tower whipping by in a blur.
