by Jada Fisher
“What… What is this?”
A strange voice took her gaze away from the heavens, and she looked to the still-floating dais to see three humans trying to get up from where they laid across the ground. Two women, and one young man who looked no older than an academy acolyte.
“This,” Yacrist breathed, and Eist could feel as his power flooded the air all around them, foreboding and evil and threatening, “is retribution.”
He began to grow, his skin stretching as it transitioned from human to the purple-black of the blight. Eist watched in horror as he slowly took on the form of some sort of eldritch horror, massive with a snapping maw.
It was a grotesque show of warping and buckling, which Eist watched in a strange sort of shock as his limbs came to encircle the trio, who were still struggling to stand and looking around themselves like they had never seen the world before.
And maybe they hadn’t, at least not in the form they were now, because Eist realized exactly who the three were just as the creature—no, Yacrist—wrapped his arms around them.
Your day has come, little runaways. His voice was terrible and grating without making a sound at all. It echoed in Eist’s head like a whirlwind, making her skin crawl and sweat break out along her bruised brow. It is time to join all the rest of your kin.
His mouth opened wide, teeth growing from his inky gums, thick saliva trailing between the impossibly large spikes. He drew the moment out significantly, and Eist knew that if she didn’t do something quickly, the Blight was going to devour the Three right in front of her.
She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let him win. Not after everything they had gone through.
Because even if he wasn’t lying about them being usurpers, even if they had accidentally caused her realm to spin toward destruction and chaos, even if they had stolen magic and life and energy that didn’t belong to them, Eist knew that letting the Blight take them as he wished would be make everything so much worse.
She had to stop him.
She had to.
But what else could she do? She was exhausted and beaten, her hip was still bleeding, and she could feel her limbs growing cold. She was tapped out of magic and emotionally raw.
“Yacrist!” she cried, for the lack of any other plans or tricks. No clever back doors or loopholes. “Yacrist, you don’t have to do this!”
But he paid her no mind, and she realized that she only had mere moments before her entire world ended.
The eldest of the three humans managed to get to her feet, and she half-turned to see Eist. Her eyes went wide, and it seemed they recognized each other instantly.
“W’allenhaus,” the woman breathed.
“All-Mother,” Eist answered back, her chest squeezing. She was talking to a goddess. A goddess made flesh!
“Save us!”
“How!?”
The woman didn’t answer. Yacrist’s massive, clawed hand wrapped around her and his tongue licking a long, saliva-covered stripe over her head. Eist stared in unchecked horror, her body screaming at her to do something but her mind coming up short.
For a moment, she was so sure she was about to watch the destruction of her kind, but then a shadow crossed over her and a familiar bellow burst through the air.
Fior!
Eist let out a happy, shocked, delirious cry as her boy positioned himself above her, roaring right into Yacrist’s open mouth. The Blight clearly hadn’t been expecting that, and his dozen or so yellow eyes flashed to the brindle.
Stop that!
It was clear that Fior was causing him pain, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. It wasn’t enough to slow him down even. It was just enough to tick him off. If only they had—
There was another blinding flash of light and this time, the Blight did wince, dropping the three humans to the ground. Eist barely covered her eyes in time, and when she dared to look again, she saw a portal open above their heads, swirling with blue and green.
Why are you doing this, little Eist? This is your deliverance! Don’t you tire of this endless battle?
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Eist shouted with wide eyes. “But that’s not me.”
Wha—
He never finished his sentence. A dozen dark, glittering shapes burst out of the portal and encircled the dais. It wasn’t until the silhouettes completely surrounded them that two final ones burst from the portal, each with a human on their shining backs.
“Looks like we got here right on time!” a semi-familiar voice cried. “Let ‘em have it and get me the hell home!”
By the time Eist recognized it as the dragon keeper her grandfather had sent her to on her little trip through time, the brindled dragons around them all opened their mouths and let out truly magnificent roars. For the first time since Fior had first saved her in the woods, she could actually hear the beautiful timbre of it as it bounced around her head, driving her to her knees with its sheer power.
But the pain only lasted a few moments until her hearing adjusted to a dull roar. The humanized Three and Yacrist were not so lucky, however, with the dragons’ cries seeming to rip through his dark, inky flesh.
Bit by bit, the dark was ripped away while Yacrist screamed and thrashed. The monster slowly broke apart, until only her once-friend remained.
“Eist!” he groaned, his words barely able to get to her over the tumult happening all around them. “Eist, stop this, please!”
He fell to his knees, screaming and shaking as more darkness bled from him. Even his shadow dissolved, try as it might to roll up and protect him. Bit by bit, Eist could see more of him revealed in her vision, glowing gold instead of the dark, slimy cast that she had come to recognize as his possession.
“Eist, stop it! It hurts, oh gods, they’re killing me, Eist!” He looked at her pleadingly, tears tracking down his cheeks, and it took all of Eist’s willpower not to run to him. “What happened? Why are they doing this!? Eist! Eist! Tell me what’s happening!”
It was a trick. She knew that much, she did, and yet his words were like a brand into her soul. What if this was her Yacrist talking to her, one who didn’t know what had happened? One that had been asleep ever since he was ripped from her grip.
No.
No, it didn’t work like that. He had been awake this whole time, just perverted by the twisted magic of the Blight. If he hadn’t been Yacrist, then the Blight would have just killed her and been done with it. No, he was a vessel, intertwined intrinsically with whatever the Blight was doing.
So it was a trick.
She had to let him—
“You insolent little quim!” he snarled, lips pulled back from his teeth. As he screamed, a black cloud billowed out from his open mouth, startling Eist a step backward. “You think this will stop me? Your gods are nothing! Nothing compared to my power!”
Ah.
Very much a trick.
Eist pressed a shaking hand to her mouth, feeling dizzier by the moment. The magic drenching the air all around her was intoxicating, and the roaring surrounding her made her feel as if her whole body might vibrate into a thousand different pieces. It was all too much, assaulting her every sense and overwhelming her with everything that was happening all at once.
But Yacrist screamed again, clutching his hands to his head. Eist stumbled forward without thinking, her heart aching as his body bucked and writhed, trying to right itself.
“Eist, don’t!” someone called to her. The All-Mother perhaps? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She fell to her knees before Yacrist, her hands resting on top of his.
He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes, black leaking out of his mouth and nose. He gave her the slightest bit of a grin, his teeth stained with the inky gunk. “I knew you wouldn’t let me suffer.”
Eist looked at him for a long breath, studying every part of his face. Putting a little more pressure on his hands, she brought his visage close to hers.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Friend!” she cried before pulling the
magic rushing through everything into her body and letting it out of her palms.
His eyes went wide and then light was shining through him, blasting the darkness further out of his body. He shook, he wailed, he tried to fight out of her grip, but Eist held firm.
She was going to get the Blight out of him. She had to.
Eist was faintly aware of her body being buffeted violently by the roars of the brindles, but it hardly bothered her. It seemed strange that her lack of hearing could make her so impervious to what was nearly killing the Blight, but she didn’t question it. She could only concentrate on breaking every hold the Blight had on her friend.
“Eist… Eist, you have to stop,” he panted, light continuing to pour out of his mouth and eyes. “We’re destined to be together. I’ve freed you from the usurpers.”
“Let Yacrist go!”
“I can’t! We were destined to be one. I needed him to free all of you. I had to be a part of this realm.”
“You’re not a part of this realm. He is! And you will give him back to me!”
“There is no him!” He wretched and more black liquid poured out of his mouth through the bright light she was pressing into him. “It’s just me! Us! We’re one in the same, Eist, and you’re killing me!”
Eist knew that the Blight was bluffing, he had to be, so she leaned as close as she dared and bared her teeth at him. “Then die,” she hissed, wanting the Blight to know that she wasn’t going to let it go. She had it in her hands and was going to drive it out of her friend so she could figure out if she actually loved Yacrist as a friend or more. They would have time.
Everything was building up all around them, threatening to consume the two of them whole. But Eist held on, truly believing that she could save her friend. That she could stop all of it.
Just when she felt like they were reaching the point of no return, when Yacrist would finally be freed and everyone would get to move on and live their lives, a blast of power from Yacrist’s core sent her flying backward. She caught onto the edge of the floating dais and pulled herself up on her elbows just in time to see Yacrist stagger to his feet.
There was something incredibly alien about him as he stood shakily, dark veins surging under his shifting skin and black liquid all down his front. He gave her one hateful look. “I told you, Eist. This is me now. You either accept me, or you die with the rest of them.”
She didn’t reply, instead struggling to pull herself all the way back up. Her arms were screaming, her neck was aching, and her spine was almost giving out. But she had to keep going. Yacrist was so close… If she just—
The brindles resumed their roar, she could feel it, and Yacrist looked from her to the brindles before taking a running leap off the edge.
“No!” Eist reached for him, forgetting her precarious position for a moment. She slid back quickly, almost falling over the edge herself, only to get snapped up by Fior’s familiar foot.
She watched, shocked, as Yacrist continued to fall, approaching the ground rapidly. He went down, below the roof of the temple, through the open hole in the ground, then out of sight into the darkness. It swallowed him up like he was no more than a speck of dust, but Eist wasn’t foolish enough to think he was gone.
She… She’d had him right in her grasp, pouring all the magic that she could feel into him, and then she’d lost him. Just like she always did. Everything had been handed to her, and yet she still managed to botch freeing her friend.
There was a rumble from above her, and she looked up to see that the dais was falling quickly after Yacrist, the three gods-turned-humans struggling to grip the stone. Thankfully, the other brindles swooped in, catching them up in their claws not too differently than how Eist was being held.
It should have been a moment of triumph, seeing the dragon babies that she had saved fully grown and saving humans, but all Eist could think of was how they had the Blight completely surrounded and trapped, yet he still managed to break free.
Abruptly, it all caught up with her, and she felt her body start to give out. She was faintly aware that one of her legs was soaked with her own blood and her body was begging for some rest.
So, with failure thick on her tongue, Eist let herself fall into the peace of unconsciousness.
4
False Religion
Eist woke up in terrible pain, her tongue thick in her mouth and her stomach growling terribly. For a moment, she couldn’t recall even getting into bed and wondered why she felt so uncomfortable.
But then her eyes fluttered open, and she was greeted by the now-familiar sight of Elspeth’s room.
“W…wait…” she muttered to herself, trying to sit up, but a searing pain in her side stopped her. Things were rushing to her in flashes and bursts, and she couldn’t decipher them all at once.
There had been a fight, hadn’t there? A long one that started at the academy and continued to that same stupid ancient temple where Yacrist had been taken from her.
Yacrist!
At that, she did sit up, growing nauseous from another insistent spike of pain. She’d almost had her friend back! She’d been so close! If only she—
“You are awake.”
The voice that said it was calm, understated, but with a streak of iron. Eist focused through the pain and saw a woman sitting by her side.
For a moment, she had no idea who the person was, but then a breath passed, and she realized it was one of the humans that had appeared on the circular dais.
The All-Mother.
She looked nothing like how she had in Eist’s last dream. Her hair was long and dark, flowing down her back. She was muscled, but still very feminine in her form, with bright eyes that were far too keen. She wore a plain dress, simple spun cotton in an off-white, and her tanned skin was smattered with freckles.
“You,” Eist breathed before a hand slid into her own.
She jerked away on instinct, wincing at the sudden movement, and she heard soothing words beside her.
“Hey, hey, it’s me, Dille. You’re okay, Eist. You’re okay.”
She turned her head, and sure enough, her witchy friend was beside her, dark eyes full of concern.
“You’re alive,” Eist breathed, tears welling up. “You’re alive.” Maybe it was all a dream. Some terrible nightmare that she had only barely managed to awaken from.
“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy, right? Turns out having all this magic in the world has kind of made healing spells go a bit next level.”
“You know healing spells that complicated?” Eist breathed hazily. Sure, while Dille had done some impressive stuff in the past, it was mostly stuff to patch people up and keep them fighting. Nothing that would erase arrows piercing through her back in multiple spots.
It was in the middle of her musing that Eist realized they weren’t alone. Looking around the room at everyone gathered, she saw far more faces than she expected.
The large space was actually quite crowded, with the All-Mother, Dille, and Athar by her bedside. Ain and Elspeth stood just a bit away from them with the two other once-deities sitting at the table Athar had once broken a chair by.
Beyond them stood her grandfather, the two witches from the past, Ale’a, and Fjorin. If another person joined, Eist feared that the room might burst at the seams.
“I do,” the youngest of the Three said, a small man with dark, dark skin and thick hair twisted into complicated braids. “And I tried to heal you as you slept, but you…resisted me.”
“And you are?” Eist asked sharply.
He drew himself up, breathing in deeply as if that would expand his chest, however he was a grand total of four heads maybe and it didn’t do much. “I am one of the Three, who until—”
“He’s the Grandfather,” the last woman said with disinterest. She was slender, almost to the point of being frail, with bone-white skin and flaming red hair. Her eyes were a watery gray and seemed utterly unimpressed with her surroundings. “Or at least he once was. What are any of us now?”<
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“We’re humans,” the All-Mother said, and the entire thing was completely uncanny. “Or at least something similar to them.” For some reason, her face flushed and if Eist didn’t know any better, she would have thought the woman was blushing. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
Eist sent a confused look to Dille, who shrugged while readying her a tankard of water. “For what?”
“We… We didn’t know. When we made our paradise, we just were trying to recreate what we had in our home. If we had known—”
Dille held up a hand. “You know, I realize that you probably want to abate your conscious or something, but I’ve lived half a life where I was connected to those spirits, and they said they did plenty to warn you.”
“In hindsight, yes, they did give us many warnings that we did not heed. But you must understand, we never meant to harm your world. We wanted to take care of you, to have you flourish as our world once did, before that evil creature swept them all up in its maw.”
“Is that so?” Eist asked. She was suspicious, she couldn’t help it. Her entire life she had been raised with the assumption that the Three were their one true religion. Their gracious gods meant to protect them. Learning that they had been part of what was killing her world was a hard pill to swallow. “Did you stop then, the moment that you found out you were making things worse?”
To her credit, the goddess held Eist’s gaze as she answered. “We were prideful, and we thought we knew better. We tried to fight him on our own, and for a while, it seemed we succeeded, but before we knew it, he had managed to subvert us and then our connection to our subjects was tenuous at best.”
“And how exactly did it do that?” Ain asked bitterly. Eist glanced to his face and was surprised by what she saw there. Instead of being his normal aloof self, his entire expression was one of anger and irritation. It was like looking at the old Ain when she had been able to rile him up, except there were dark circles under his eyes. She didn’t think that she had seen him so angry in years.
