Blackest Spells

by Phipps, C. T.

  “Is that what bothers you? You small petty man,” he scoffed as his face contorted into a long venomous sneer. He became taller, more feral until his head brushed the tunnel roof. His eyes glittered golden, all seeing.

  “A shifter, for how long, heathen?”

  “Long enough to remember our cozy night trapped by the blizzard in that old tower. Our progeny are destined for greatness when Darkness ascends.” He gave a malicious smile which vanished as I rose. Light illuminated the tunnel, reflecting his sudden fear back into his iris. “No! That’s not fair!”

  “Inquisitor to the Lady of Illumination, not investigator. Your clan of wriggling bottom feeders slipped up.” I raised my long dagger as though wagging a chiding finger and the golden spine with its sigils irradiated a garish orange light. Faith suffused the tunnel. Blooming. As I prayed, pouring forth my cant, he diminished. For all his physical prowess, he seemed smaller, unable to face the light, the glory of my mistress in melic radiance.

  He cursed, his words unintelligible, and we cast together. A hammer of purity punched from the tunnel roof into his head, blasting eyeballs and brains over my feet as he flopped limp with a wet splat into the puddle of dissolved rock. I looked down, expecting to see a steaming hole through my chest. To my incredulity, I remained intact. Being the practical sort around miracles, I gulped in a deep breath, grimacing at the stench and lurched to retrieve my gauntlets.

  I bless my equipment, yet for one reason or another, I’d neglected on buying the gauntlets with hustling before a storm to meet the wagon train into Bend. Crater city is sheltered by distance, yet the rising land and Rim mountains are brutal when the weather turns. It made a seasoned guide a necessity and Bend has plenty, being a major trading town. A soldier worships the God of War, or in rare circumstances, the God of Healing. I’d sought knowledge instead. I’d needed to find logic in the world—answer every why. It was a mutual marriage of convenience. My sect within The Order needed rid of corruption and I needed a cause, which I hadn’t realised at the time. I became the hammer on their anvil. Common, utilitarian and effective.

  I raised my dagger and peered towards the temple, squinting and probing with my senses. There was something, an eerie hollow dread I couldn’t shake. Shit, he’d sacrificed himself for a summoning—the cunning bastard had reached out to his unseen master.

  Then I felt it. I shook, and that was before I saw a tiny mottled octopus on four stubby legs crawl out of Mellar’s neck where the flesh still sizzled. I stamped, swallowing bile. I wasn’t taking a chance with the sickening sensation I experienced, as I’d done that and been played like a harp. What could dim my goddess? Piss-poor perspicacity for an inquisitor. For me.

  From the depths of that dark entrance, a cry echoed until it roared like all the hives of hornets in the land released together. Darkness exploded between those all too close columns, swerved over the partial collapse and split around my blade. I felt chilled to the marrow as the light dimmed to a pitiful mockery of its former self. I spun on my heel, coat billowing as the ground tremored and ran as the glow globes died. My only illumination was my dagger, irrepressible and enfeebled.

  I scooped up both pistol and smoking gauntlets and barrelled down the passage, past the unworked rich rider of coal we’d come across when having a breather. It extinguished a cheery flicker of reflected light out as I wheezed past, skidding and sliding through turn and syncline. Adrenaline clutched my weariness and wounds and flung them behind as mouth gaping, my heart pounded, and legs pistoned.

  The pitch of the roar shifted, becoming pure malevolence as I fled through crossroads and side tunnels, past abandoned carts and hurdled discarded tools. Hidden eyes followed my every move, boring into my back. I caught glimpses of pursuit out of the corner of my eye, but with the dark drawing in, they were distant flickers.

  My subconscious ran amok as I hit my second wind, seized it in a vice of determination, clenched my teeth and bit. A promise of unstoppable despair caused frosty tendrils to seize my spine and compressed my bladder in unadulterated fear. The short blade became the symbolic fragment of my goddess—a spark in the dark. Her residual touch might save my soul and if she so desired, my life.

  Whatever followed me, Crater, and The Rim was unprepared for it. My temple and The Order hadn’t faced something of this magnitude. Black, white, purple and blue, the old and young of humanity needed warning. I stifled a sob, feeling powerless as my second wind faded and the pressure increased on my trembling steel, with just the sigils glowing. The lift appeared, empty and lit by the lantern we’d dimmed. I could have sobbed a prayer to luck itself if I’d the wind.

  Wheezing, gasping, I tottered on rubbery legs as it lurched to a halt. I heard the crack of the brake being released and redoubled my pace. Snails passed me as I saw it rise, inch by painful inch. The blood roared in my ears as it ascended. I wasn’t going to make it! I hurled myself on, willing more speed, throwing myself at the opening, punching out my arms to grab the gate—and missed. My pistol flew inside as my armpits rebounded on the threshold. My tattered gauntlets snaked through the dust where we’d stood, fingernails gouging. No! I clutched nothingness in a despairing grip and plummeted, spent. My hat flew off, and I caught a brief flicker of it spinning end over end into the shaft as I somersaulted. Shit, I’d see it again soon enough.

  Pain. A bastard motherfucker of a pain seized both my wrists as I swung dumbfounded and dragged me upwards. I became a howling human pendulum a foot beneath the dusty floorboards and an inch from spreading my nose on the centre beam. A pale face, with a halo of dark curly hair the colour of midnight smiled down with the warmth of a winter blizzard.

  I half expected my hands to explode from the force of her grip as elongated teeth and red featureless eyes turned my bowels to ice when she licked her lips. A languid curl and twist of promise. When terrified beyond your wits, this isn’t a sensation to relish. Like a babe, she hauled me into the lift before the rock face smeared me flat. Like said child’s toy, she deposited me under the still open hatch with a chaste kiss that had my cheek prickling and my cock tingling against my thigh.

  I blinked, face now burning like the searing pain when thawing from frostbite. My hand darted for the gun, seeking reassurance in empty arms as I shuddered away. Her touch, sent my soul writhing. I took in a deep shuddering breath, summoning professional civility and holstered the flintlock. I missed my hat. It surprised me I had the energy to conceive such inanity.

  “Lady Jezebel, fancy meeting you. My thanks, your timing was impeccable.”

  “Grand Inquisitor, Luthir Topan, forgive my imposition, but Baal awakens.” I would have laughed at her dry formality, here of all places, but I didn’t have it in me. Not after experiencing the thing below. I leaned against the wall and started. It was no small relief to see the light on my blade brighten and the lantern flutter on the ceiling pivot. Jezebel stared, and I was thankful to see her eyes become mithril mirrors. Instead of pupils, I saw my blade reflected. “This concerns all races. Unchecked, it will envelop everyone for an eternity of unimaginable despair.”

  “Wouldn’t the long-lived like yourself appreciate mankind being consumed? This Old One, Baal—is the Darkness?” I took no particular pains to conceal my incredulity.

  “Yes. I am here by choice. My choice, Priest. My coven, my race, will not become mindless pawns. If we do not stand together, that will be our fate, before being consumed. Assimilated and eradicated from existence.”

  “A nice thought considering our not insubstantial differences. The tunnel, was you?”

  “Yes, I failed. It was too strong.”

  “Fuck.”

  She was a cool one, and I could not remain to stand. I could feel the world pulling me down. I slid onto my backside to sit on my holster. My eyes became heavy and the last thing I saw was the sigils of Pansoph fading from my blade as vampyric eyes scrutinised me, then the rock face beyond the opening.

  “Wake up!” Her voice came from far away. I moaned as her bo
ot probed the side of my chest. It didn’t take much imagination to feel the enmity behind the pain. My backside ached of sitting on my pistol, but I felt fewer aches than I may have expected, so I couldn’t have been out long.

  “What is it?”

  “The Baalim are coming,” she bit her lip, but there was nothing sensual in the mannerism. No obvious diabolical deception. She peeked over the gate and flicked a sideways glance my way. “We have a few minutes at most.”

  “Right.” My mind whirled, too gummed for melancholy. I moved my leg and decided I may as well reload. “Do we have a truce?”

  “For now, yes. We can arrange a concord later if we get out.” He eyes emitted a glow like coals and I gulped. I rammed the ball down the barrel and felt my wrists sting. I muttered a prayer and checked under my cuffs to see dark weals in the angular shadows. She sensed the movement and my surreptitious shield prayer and rolled a throaty chuckle to my ears.

  “It appears we are not compatible. A simple touch between us remains unclean. You are not the only one with trust issues, Inquisitor. Self-righteous purple-skinned bastards like you have hounded non-humans for millennia. You reap what you sow, but this entity is as old as the land and its minions will not drag my brethren down with your kind.”

  I grunted. I couldn’t disagree with anything she’d said and my clever plan to sneak in for a preliminary look had unravelled. I looked at her, small beautiful and determined and shook my head. We were almost a match in our arrogance and failure.

  Only a Vampyr would wear a silk ballgown in a mine and not appear stupid. Her lip curled, and she wriggled her fingers. I saw flesh through the charred burgundy velvet and that answered one unasked question. With a sigh I stood, fingering my ankh and split my gaze between the hatch and the gate. Neither inspired confidence as the sounds of pursuit reached us. Form an alliance with a devil to fight a different hell. I shuddered and not from the chill.

  She moved in a blur, a feral hiss bursting from her throat as shadows loomed. Her punch sent one figure and the gate back down the shaft. I struggled to see the Baalim as darkness and shadow undulated in misshapen humanoid form. They dwarfed Jezebel who’d stand five-foot-four when not in heels to match my six-foot and the shapes were a head taller than me.

  I lashed at one squirming past her and it snarled as it came into proximity of my nimbus. I seized the imperceptible hesitation and thrust my blade in its throat and twisted. Jezebel spun on one exquisite leg and buried her heel in the amber eye of a creature launching itself from the roof. I chanted at the one following to blast globs of brains and flesh over both combatants as she struggled to extricate her foot. She gave me a look. A look to wither a man. Sighing at her dress, she pivoted, throwing the corpse into another pair clawing inside.

  I glanced up, my instincts working faster than my mind and saw a face in the hatch. I fired. A howl, a thump and scraping splatter as it tumbled between lift and shaft. No time to reload as another javelin’d inside and clobbered me before I could flip my gun. I owed my goddess another prayer as I careered into the back of the lift, somehow keeping my grip on the blade and pistol. I ducked and slammed the heavy butt into a kneecap. It shrieked so loud I felt blood run from my ears. I hit it again, and again, infusing myself with divine power. It howled, I smashed the fucker in the mouth, shattering its jaw and silencing it. Jezebel grabbed it by the back of the neck and tossed it out. No clatter.

  More dropped, and we fought back to back. Each time we touched I felt nauseous, and she hissed. Bumping and twisting I stabbed, clubbed and chanted, but my strength was draining. I could not maintain the tempo as lean bodies piled around our feet. A punch felled me and only the flick of her hand into my hair kept me from a long trip downwards.

  Another punch rocked me where Mellar had struck, and I toppled, lungs voided. I felt myself fade out as a figure pounced to tear out my throat. Eyes like coals drew me in; empty, merciless and I accepted it was my time. Jezebel darted in but darkness clamped fangs around her thigh. She shrieked, in pain and the anguish of having her gown ruined. Hammering its head, the vampyr twisted and attempted to drag herself forward and reach me. Instead, it punched a talon between the floorboards and pulled her backwards.

  With a curse, she tore free her necklace and threw it at the roof as she barked something guttural. I stabbed. A last pathetic act of defiance. The lift shook as though caught in a hurricane. The weight on me vanished as stickiness gushed over my arm. Frustrated rasps and thuds swirled as everything went white to a clarion chime. Agony exploded, as though an unseen hand grabbed my life energies and sought to tear them away.

  Her boot prodded me again, thankfully on my uninjured side. I rolled over and threw up, feeling weaker than a day old kitten. I knew the taint of sorcery and it repulsed me to my core. I hauled myself onto my haunches in a suddenly empty car and spat into the shaft to clear my mouth. Other than the small hole in the floor and patches of sulphurous scorching as though something had ricocheted around, it appeared we’d been ascending alone. I wiped my mouth and cursed. All the corpses had vanished, and I’d wanted a head as evidence.

  I caught her as she fell, light, yet somehow solid and grimaced at the amount of thick black blood pouring over my coat from her leg. I could let the unholy bitch die. Be righteous as holy Pansoph decreed and my reputation dictated.

  My goddess commanded me to cleanse the world of the impure, but I couldn’t end her. Not here. Still. I yearned to do it. The spell formed on my lips unbidden as I shook with indecision, frustration ripped across my face as I watched her breathe. A regular in, out of blood mottled silk. I slammed my knife into the boards and summoned light. Moving with a purpose, I tore free my neck-scarf, rolled and wrapped it tight around her thigh. Ignoring the smell was more difficult, and I felt my gorge rise as her blood stank like old coffins.

  I sat when finished, applying pressure on the wound, using one paste eaten gauntlet as a pad and applying pressure while wearing the other. Idly, I fingered the shard of jewellery she’d used to save us. Felt the energies through my fingertips. I had a premonition and didn’t like where it led. I’d have to suggest it. Be the one to persuade her to darken our light, and grant mankind greater power for an unprecedented cost. For a moment, I felt lost, as sick as when she’d stolen my life force. I’d felt the pursuit, the wrongness below and couldn’t imagine how to stop it. It was not owing her my life that stayed me, nor humanities need, but a question. What the fuck were we fighting? I laughed until the jerk of the mechanism stilled my bitter tears.

  Even exhausted, it took me a moment to drag her into the next lift and lower the battered one so I could stand on the roof. I imagined the things that almost killed us—the Baalim—as I fingered the vial on my belt. If honest to myself, I was glad to escape her taint. If I destroyed the lift, it’d delay whatever was emerging. It’d prevent a return in numbers for a counterattack as a trade-off but returning to gather the forces and resources would consume precious time—possibly months.

  I didn’t have the time to spend and what fucking inspiration would prayer grant? Shit and shitter, two scales to balance fate and future. A bad hand to roll on, to temporise upon but I took the easy option. Call me a coward, but I cracked the wax seal and tipped droplets of cutter on the roof shackle, then the chain, before jumping to the passage and kicking the brake. I didn’t look back, I knew nightfall lay ahead.

  The King and the Wizard

  By Frank Martin

  I pushed open the hatch above my head and was instantly met with the relieved faces belonging to my personal guard.

  “My king!” exclaimed one of the excited knights. “You’re back!”

  The men helped me up the last step and into the wine cellar. One of the knights then looked down into the tunnel I just emerged from. It led into a secret passage that had been used by royals and knights to sneak in and out of the castle for centuries.

  “Where is Lady Grace, my liege?” the knight asked.

  He was referring to my bride
-to-be. She ran off tonight, on the eve of our wedding, to the Black Witch of the dark forest. I didn’t have the time to explain what happened when I found her, though. Our predicament was dire, and there was only one thing I needed to know.

  “Where is Wyland?”

  The same knight scrunched his face confused. He didn’t understand. But he didn’t have to. He just had to answer the question. “In his study.”

  I fled from the cellar so quickly the puzzled knights couldn’t react swiftly enough to follow. I sprinted through the castle’s halls as fast as my armored body would allow. I found no one awake at this late hour. Everyone was probably asleep and resting for what they presumed would be an eventful royal wedding tomorrow.

  Everyone except Wyland.

  I knew he would still be awake. It was rumored the wizard had conquered the necessity to sleep as a youth and now spent his nights refining spells and concocting potions. In all my family’s royal history, I never read about a wizard so skilled at such a young age. I only hope he was strong enough to help solve this crisis I’ve stumbled upon. Otherwise, the whole kingdom would be at risk.

  As king, I wasn’t necessarily required to knock on any doors of the castle before entering. I usually did, though, out of respect and courtesy. Not now.

  I barged into the wizard’s study without breaking my stride and spoke even before spotting him. “Wyland, I need your help.”

  The wizard looked up from an ancient tome he had his head buried in and squinted at the sight of me. “My king? What’s wrong? You look frazzled. Are you anxious about tomorrow’s nuptials? If you require a calming potion then I’m sure I could—”

  “It’s the Black Witch.”

  Wyland’s squinted eyes grew wide. He stared at me a moment before asking a question threw gritted teeth. “What does she have to do with this?”

  I shamefully lowered my gaze to the floor. “Grace is dead. The witch transformed my beautiful fiancé into a dragon and compelled me to slay her.”