The crazy thought made her smile. No wonder fear had turned to exhilaration so quickly. She was immersed in a living dream, for all that it could kill her. "Notice how clean the air smells. That mist, terrible as it was, I think it was sustaining those creatures. So perhaps they can't survive outside of it?"
“That’s my guess,” Twilight allowed, gracefully leaping to Jess’s shoulder once more before licking his fur clean of dust and shattered stone.
Malek nodded. “Makes sense. And by Justice, these stairs are finally ending!” The shimmering light they approached appeared to be coming from a doorway at the end of a long hall the massive winding staircase had led them to. The stone walls were of finely polished basalt, sloping to an arch overhead, lined with phosphorescent chunks of ruby red crystal. The strange corridor was bare, however, of any ornamentation. Only the oddly glowing doorway at the end of the hall looked to be of any significance.
Sensing they were safe for the moment, Jess closed her eyes, centering herself even as she took a deep breath, only then fixing her gaze on the passageway ahead. “I don’t sense anything malevolent. Many strands of power crisscross this keep and that doorway, but no black strands hinting at traps or malice, at least not that I can detect.”
“Good to know, Jess," Malek approved. Jess nodded, happy that she had exercised due caution. For all that she could sense blatant chords of power rather easily, she needed to concentrate to spot the subtle ones, the threads that might be the faint remnants of a nearly faded spell, or a carefully concealed trap. She recalled all too well how Rens's miscast spell back at the college had nearly spelled disaster, sliced only just in time by her blood slicked knife.
Jess noted a faint humming emanating from the doorway they slowly approached with careful steps. She gave a considering shake of her head as she gazed carefully at the doorway, having sensed the fine latticework of arcane power surrounding it. Jess concentrated but a moment and the doorway suddenly glimmered, a sheet of golden energy warding the door, one she sensed would cause no harm save bruising, for it would be as impermeable as walking into a wall of sheer basalt. She could sense as well the silvery trails of magic and dream emanating from the passageway beyond.
Malek tilted his head and frowned, pulling out a piece of dried jerky and tossing it at the doorway. It bounced off as if it had hit a steel wall.
Twilight cocked his head. “Utterly impenetrable force field. No other traps that I can sense beyond simple impermeability.” He turned to Jess and grinned. “Though not quite so impenetrable as some might think. Is that not right, my mistress?”
Jess nodded and gave her familiar an affectionate pat before redrawing her blade, grimacing as she forced herself to deliberately cut her own flesh once more, the sting of steel parting the flesh of her cheeks yet again. The pain sparked a furious focus, like a breath of wind reigniting dormant coals, blazing forth her anger at the horrors she had witnessed firsthand in their travels.
An entire town, consumed.
An innocent child screaming her last as her life turned to endless nightmare. Her friends, slowly crushed under the terrible pressure of this sinking realm, drowning in darkest Shadow. With a shuddering breath, Jess focused her outrage into a fierce cauldron of purpose, thrusting her blooded blade into the force field before them.
With but a moment’s crackling resistance, the barrier parted like mist before fading away to nothing.
“Nice trick.” Malek smiled, and blades unsheathed, they slowly entered.
29
The first thing Jess noted was that the structure had changed. Whereas the massive tower they had raced through to get here had been constructed of stone akin to granite, now the corridors were formed of an oddly luminescent quartz streaked with silver, glowing a deep shade of blue. She had never seen the like. It seemed to pulse with hidden energies. The way forward was narrower as well, and as opposed to being an arching corridor thousands of feet in the air, Jess was struck with the curious sensation that they were now in a tunnel deep within the earth.
The second thing Jess noted was the sound of people screaming for their lives.
Jess shivered. The raw panic she heard in those shrieks sickened her.
“Bloody hells,” Malek muttered as they picked up their pace. “It's probably too late, whatever’s going on.”
“Probably,” Jess agreed, which didn’t stop their fast pace from turning into a run, Twilight hopping off her shoulder to glide effortlessly past them as they raced through the winding, twisting corridor, slowing down only as the pathway ended at last, opening up into a vast cavern made of the same luminescent quartz. The gentle blue glow didn’t detract from the horror below, however.
For down within the bowels of the great cavern, Jess beheld a sight that shook her to the core. Scores of villagers were being held captive in a pen like beasts, even as hideous creatures dragged out a screaming, struggling captive before slamming shut the cage below, heedless of the desperate cries of the villagers begging for release.
Then Jess blinked, catching sight of the odd silvery pool of light upon the cavern roof. A window looking into an adjoining world, Jess thought. The real world, perhaps, even as Jess gazed up from the depths of Shadow, Pommel well and truly lost to the darkest of dreams.
The scene playing out in the world above was no less chilling than the horrible nightmare taking place within the great quartz-lined chamber before Jess. For despite the impossible distance, she could clearly see the grassy woodland clearing inhabited by cloaked figures involved in darkest ritual, and Jess was struck breathless when she caught sight of the saturnine features of her old nemesis, Mord de Plaga.
She could make out every detail of that face she had so loved to hate, and sometimes, overwhelmed with the horrors of what they had done in their missions for king and Crown, loved to love as well. Both of them drunk with wine and relief during the revels that Squires and Aspirants would savor together after surviving yet another mission guarding each other's backs, even as their blades ran slick with the blood of men who would never see trial. Men whose screams for quarter went unheeded as they were cut down to the last men. Assignments neither school nor Crown would ever formally acknowledge. And always Jess and her nemesis would be at odds with dawn's first light, enemies once more, the moment she would slip free of powerful arms keeping night terrors at bay.
Mord's bittersweet countenance was not the only one she recognized. She could also make out the features of lean, sinewy Erno de Vilde grinning with dark excitement, and toadlike Vaki de Slaktare, bulging eyes blinking rapidly, licking his own bulbous lips in an expression Jess thought was equal parts determination and anxious fear. Yet what shook Jess was the look on Mord's face.
Arrogant and contemptuous, aligned with the haughtiest of smirks had been what Jess was expecting. Not for his gaze to serve as a haunted window into his own tormented soul. Jess was moved to the quick to see such human pain, such naked remorse in her erstwhile enemy's stare, and she shuddered to think what would cause him such regret.
And in a single eye-blink, the shimmering window into that overlapping realm, the reality to which Jess's own location was but a dream, expanded even further.
“Bloody hells," Malek cursed. "They wouldn't!"
And suddenly the reason for Malek's curse and Mord's pain-filled gaze became chillingly clear. A tableau of horror and defilement unfolded, a terrible mockery of all things sacred and beautiful. Three young men wearing robes of midnight, covered in strange luminous symbols, kneeling within a circle of blood red runes. Behind them stood their sires, the three lords wearing similar robes, though Jess immediately noted hands subtly resting on sheathed sword hilts, gazing imperiously at their sons, Jess's longtime rivals at Erovering's most prestigious college of war.
Fellow students who only now she remembered having encountered deep within Regio once before, a pocket realm overlapping Highrock itself, having negotiated with them at swords-point for the souls of Lady Vaila and her child. Forgetfulne
ss was the price she had willingly paid, in return for their solemn oath never to harm the families of Highrock students again.
Only herself could Mord taunt and cross, and she did indeed hate him for that, yet it was only after he had near broken her that his twisted fury finally revealed the aching need of his soul. Perhaps Mord really had seen in her his future wife. Yet he was desperate for a girl who was submissive and thus safe, one he could nurture free of injury and pain and thus earn her love, as nobly as he knew how. Fury burned away, he had intended the same for a bruised and battered Jess when she had finally yielded to him, for all that he was the one who had caused her injuries in the first place. And in his own twisted way, he had tried to redeem himself in her eyes, even then.
Mord had not been lying when he had said he had put his very soul in peril, saving little Louise from a fate worse than death. He had been the one responsible for the runes that protected Lady Vaila's child, her warded soul guarding the Tree of Life against the demonlord that had sought to sink his tendrils into the heart of Dawn. For all his depravity and cold contempt, Mord, in his darkest hour, had warded the most sacred artifact in all of Highrock, a link to Dawn's very heart. And no matter how much a part of her hated him, she couldn't deny how utterly his deed had skewed the weights measuring his soul. Dark as sin he might be, but where a score of men had done all they could to sunder the world, Mord had helped to preserve it.
Jess shivered, overwhelmed, understanding at that instant just how vile the scene in play truly was. For she recognized the cold gaze of Mord's own sire looking sternly on, even as Mord was faced with the most terrible of choices. A temptation that, no matter his previous act of virtue, would forever damn him if he was truly so foolish and vile as to surrender to it.
Jess's voice rang throughout the vast chamber she stood at the mouth of. So loud, she hoped it would echo even through the window between the worlds of dream and mundus. “Mord! Please! If you ever valued yourself, if you ever valued what we might have been, if you ever valued your own sad soul, you will not do what your father compels you to!”
With a surprised gasp Mord looked up from the terrified young woman he loomed above, she holding tightly to her mewling infant, gazing with naked terror at Mord's finely polished blade unsheathed before them.
“Jess.” So much conveyed with that one simple word. Regret, hesitation, despair. He gave a soft shake of his head. “I should have known it would be you.”
Jess felt her heart race in terror and regret. The hideous cacophony of twisted beasts and torments in the cavern below was no more real than a flickering dream, none choosing to approach Jess and Malek upon their ledge. At that moment she had eyes only for the shimmering mirage within the heart of the chamber, a window through the realm of dream by which she could glimpse sight of Mord and the terrible rite of sacrifice about to play out.
Jess's erstwhile enemy abruptly wrenched his gaze free of Jess's own, locking squarely once more upon his shaking victim. A girl their own age, gazing at Mord with tear-stained eyes. "Please, my lord. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill my baby!" she begged.
Mord grimaced, fist shaking on his blade, inhaling in preparation to strike, even as the girl and Jess cried out as one, before hesitating at the last.
Vaki seemed almost relieved that Mord had hesitated, even as Erno turned to gaze coldly at Mord. “I have followed you at Highrock for all our years together in preparation for this moment. We strike as one and claim the souls of these dams and their babes, brother-in-arms, and claim the power that is our birthright!” He alone gazed with twisted glee as the girl before him sobbed and cried, holding her own mewling infant close to her chest.
“Mord, please!" Jess cried out, intuitively reaching out to the sliver of a decent soul his father had not wholly corrupted. "This isn't you! This isn't the path of a knight, no matter how ruthless you were trained to be. You know your duty, you who would be a knight of Highrock! Protect the weak, slay the wicked, show mercy to those who have submitted themselves utterly to you!"
Jess heard the crack of Lord de Plaga's furious fist smacking his son's ear. "Make the sacrifice, fool! You have performed all other duties without fear or hesitation. Knighted in rank and a man in truth, able to make your choice before the scales of Chaos itself! Now sacrifice that damned wench and babe, and embrace the power that is your destiny!”
And then Jess heard it, a throaty chuckle so vile, so discordant, she felt her very flesh shiver with revulsion, even as Mord and his companions shuddered helplessly as the sensual laughter washed over them. “Hold your fist, dear Morlin. You may only entice, never compel. Your son must embrace the blood rite of his own free will.”
And then Jess saw it, that image manifesting as if through a mirror within a mirror, in the heart of the circle of sacrifice Mord and his companions kneeled within, along with their victims prone before them. A face of sensual, decadent beauty gazing at them all from deep within the heart of that crimson circle. Her exquisitely proportioned, porcelain fine features were without blemish or flaw. Cheeks high and full, lush lips smiling in a promise of unspeakable carnal delights. She was a vision of naked desire such to take a man's breath away, for all that her hauntingly beautiful irises were the color of blood, her hair snapping and twining like serpents of flame.
The horror of it was, in that very moment Jess recognized that face, all the memories of all her voyages into Shadow crashing into her as one. She recalled, then, wearing the body and dress of a young girl of twelve, dueling a foul caricature of a man in the city of Discordia, fighting for the souls of children held captive beyond life and death. She remembered the raw exhilaration of her deadly thrust, her foe collapsing in a pile of crimson roses, her beloved Malek a wolf of shadow drinking them dry.
Jess shuddered then in recollection of the terrible laughter that had then emanated from that crowd of admiring demons wearing the caricatures of elegantly dressed gentlemen and ladies who had delighted in witnessing her duel, applauding Jess in perfect clockwork unison. And all had given way before the dark queen among them, her face an awful mirror of Jessica's own. A being that was gazing back at Jess even at that very moment with such a terrible, knowing smile.
“Ah, my dear sweet Jezabelle. Exactly where I need you to be. And your precious little pets. Together as always. How very touching." Her laugh turned dark and throaty. "Tell me, elder gods, do you tire yet of wearing the guise of simple creatures? Embrace your powers, Dark Ones! Join my daughter in madness. Bring this patchwork realm down in ashes and flames, as it so dearly deserves to be!"
“We make our own choices, Lilith of the Fallen!” Twilight’s frigid voice roared through the cavern, an icy gale that seemed to tear through the grassy clearing even in mundus. Lords Plaga and Trollos shivered, looking up in sudden apprehension, eyes widening with ill-concealed dread. This only made the mocking demoness smile all the wider.
“Easy, beloved one," Jess soothed, stroking her riled familiar gently, the grasses within the field glimpsed only from across the realm of dream itself stilling once more. Only then did Jess realize that the twisted vision of beauty had spoken to them in a tongue corrupt and foul, utterly inhuman. And Jess had understood every word.
Lord Slaktare, portly, though not so bloated as his son, shuddered. "By the abyssal planes, that creature's eyes glowed even as the winds of the Void blew through this field... that was Lady de Calenbry's familiar! To effect Dawn even while trapped within the realm of dreams, what machinations does her family embrace behind our backs?"
Morlin de Plaga only sneered. "We all know the Calenbrys have their secrets, for all their protestations of innocence, for all that they decline the gentlest overtures of the Dark Council. Yet we shall claim their bloodline and all their dark powers in the end. For that beast is but the pet of my son's future bride. Just a fraction of the power that will be his, if he but has the courage to do what must be done, here and now!"
Mord's gaze was haunted. He grimaced as he looked down upo
n the girl sobbing before him, pleading for her baby's life. Fist still shaking, Mord was unable to bring his blade to touch the gentle gaze of the child looking wide-eyed upon him with such innocence. The young mother's eyes were filled with terror. Jess shuddered as she understood at once the true depth of the depravity about to unfold.
“Is it true, Jess?” Mord's dark brown eyes filled with painful hope. “Are you truly one of us?”
Jess grimaced, shaking her head, sickened to realize that she was suddenly not sure who she was. Or what. But there was one thing she understood with blinding clarity. "It does not matter who or what I am, Mord. I would never harm an innocent. Let alone a child. Let alone my own flesh and blood!”
Mord gasped, gazing at Jess with horrified disbelief, shaking his head in fierce denial. “No. I would never hurt my own,” he whispered fiercely.
“She is your own!" The terrified girl screamed in panicked desperation. "You are the only man who has ever bedded me! You claimed me! You said you would protect me! Do you not remember?"
Mord shuddered, snapping around to gaze at his father with a look Jess could not see.
“Do not be weakened by her pleas!” his father roared. “She seeks to protect her own! It does not matter whose child it is, in any case. An innocent life must be sacrificed, so that your body may serve as a vessel for true power. You know this, my son. You have always known this.”
“Is she mine?”
Mord's voice a quiet, terrible whisper. And gazing upon it all with bemused, bloodred eyes, the vision of terrible beauty within the circle of sacrifice chuckled with throaty delight.
“Mord, damn it all, a queen of Hell waits upon us! Kill the damn sow and brat, and let's embrace the power that is ours!" Erno roared desperately, driving his own blade deep into the hearts of the woman and child before him, so blindingly fast they died without a sound.
Oblivion's Queen Page 34
