by Eric Vall
“No way,” Cyra breathed.
“It’s beautiful,” Layla gasped as she shone her headlamp through a cluster of glittering crystals near our feet.
I led us onward, and we stepped carefully around the jagged formations as we neared the waterfall.
“I don’t understand,” Varleth said with a yawn. “This is the cave the lost people told us about, but there’s nothing here … “
The gypsy trailed off with a slow, sleepy blink.
“What’s that?” I asked with a furrowed brow as I pointed behind us.
Near the cavern entrance, a white fog suddenly swirled up where there’d been nothing a moment before.
“Essence?” Varleth asked as he bent to examine it. He yawned again largely enough to pop his jaw, and he breathed in more fog as he did.
Then the banisher swayed unsteadily on his feet and knelt to the floor to balance himself.
My heart skipped a beat.
“Hey guys,” I warned as I tried to take a step back, “there’s something wrong with this fog.”
My vision blurred, and I found myself facing an uncontrollable urge to lie down and go to sleep.
“We have to get out,” Layla exclaimed, but she only managed a few steps before she sat down heavily among the swirling essence.
“Run,” I gasped, but it was too late for us.
Cyra collapsed at my feet, and it was only a matter of moments before the world tilted before me.
I laid my head down on the cave floor and drifted off into the blackness.
Chapter 11
When I next awoke, it was to darkness.
I looked around in confusion as I tried to piece together what had happened. I recalled the caves, the missing people, the crystal cavern, and some kind of white vapor.
How much time had passed? The world around me felt unreal, as if the fog that had put me to sleep still clouded my mind.
“Layla?” I called out. “Cyra? Varleth?”
Nobody responded, and I frowned at the thought that I was alone. Had they been possessed? Were they still unconscious nearby, unable to respond even though they were right beside me?
I twisted around to examine the darkness at the other side of the cave.
Two glittering, yellow eyes peered back at me.
The breath caught in my throat as my heart hammered in my ears.
“Who are you?” I demanded in a voice full of a confidence I didn’t feel.
The eyes flickered as they blinked, and then the cave lit up with an astonishing brightness that blinded me. The beam was white and pure like the light from the moon at night, only it shone with all the power of the noonday sun. I shielded my eyes and squinted away tears from the sudden light.
The whiteness faded slightly, and from it appeared a winged woman who stood in the center of the light as it emanated from her.
“I am she who comes,” she said, and her voice echoed through my skull like the loudest noise and the softest whisper simultaneously.
“I am she who is inevitable,” she continued, and I shook my head in pain as her whisper slithered through my ears.
“I am she who remains when all is done,” the shining woman finished, and at the last word of the third sentence, the unbearable pressure in my head vanished without a trace.
The white light dipped to a normal level, and I stared in awe and fear at the woman who was revealed.
“You may call me Sera,” she said with a slight smile, like she was a friend sharing an inside joke.
The woman, if she could be called a woman, was tall and slender-legged. She wore nothing from head to toe save for a few strips of black cloth wrapped across her arms and torso. A black triangle of lacy cloth served as panties, and her alabaster-colored skin was creamy and smooth. Her fingernails were long and white, and the curve of her large breasts drew my eye. The ends of her hair draped gracefully over her chest to barely conceal the flesh underneath.
More remarkably, a pair of jet-black wings emerged from behind her to spread six feet long over each shoulder. They seemed to drink in the light as I looked at them, and I easily found my gaze drowning in their deep, inky darkness. Her hair was an unnatural black color to match, and her unnerving yellow eyes were more like those of a wolf or a snake than a human’s.
She looked a lot like the dark mirror image of Phi, and her gaze made me feel like prey.
“What in Mistral are you?” I asked in shock.
She laughed, and the sound was low and musical with a resonance that echoed through the cave. Long after her voice stopped, the ghostly tone carried on hauntingly before it finally faded.
“I am an Archon,” she explained in a lilting voice, “though you could easily call me a queen, a goddess, or an angel instead. I once kept watch over the Shadowscape and maintained its balance.”
She blinked slowly, and the gentle motion of her long lashes against her cheek was seductive in its subtlety.
I shook off my distraction and focused on what she’d said.
“You used to keep the Shadowscape in balance?” I asked with a frown. “And now?”
She turned her gaze downward and stepped to the side. “Now, I remain imprisoned in this crystal.”
She gestured delicately behind her to the enormous pillar of crystal we’d seen when we entered the cave. It glowed unnaturally like a beacon now, and its light source seemed to be the one that illuminated the cave.
I glanced around in alarm and realized my friends were still nowhere to be seen. The cavern appeared exactly as we’d found it, but Sera and I were the only ones around.
“Where are they?” I demanded. “My friends should be here too, we all fell asleep together.”
Sera fluttered her ink-black wings, and the feathers rustled like dry leaves on a tree. The sound made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
The Archon waved a dismissive hand. “They are fine. You are the only one privy to this conversation, for you are the one I wanted.”
“What do you mean, you wanted me?” I asked in confusion.
“I require some assistance,” she said vaguely. “As soon as you entered my cave, I realized you were perfect for my needs. So, I drew you here.”
She’d watched us from the very beginning? The thought was nerve wracking, but even worse was the idea that she’d done something to tempt us into the cavern.
Then it hit me.
“You’re responsible for the possessions,” I accused as I put two and two together and glared at the Archon. “You spoke through those people to lure me in.”
“Of course,” Sera said flippantly. “They were simply a means to an end. In my state, trapped in this crystal, I can’t possibly leave to speak with my own voice. I needed to say something, so I used them. They’re fine, as you well know.”
I shook my head angrily. “You shouldn’t mess with people like that. And what about the monsters? Were those to lure in help?”
She smiled and nodded. “Of course. I needed a powerful mage for my needs, so I just released a few monsters here and there. This cavern is full of them, of course.”
“Your needs?” I spat. “People could’ve died. People probably did die!”
Sera gave me a slow, alien blink. “Humans die all the time.”
I reeled back at her casual attitude. “No wonder you lived in the Shadowscape. You fit in with the scum perfectly.”
She tapped her chin with one long, white fingernail. “I wouldn’t be so judgemental, if I were you. In the distance past, that scum lived on the same plane as you humans. The monsters only live in the Shadowscape because you put them there.”
I blinked as my mouth dropped open in shock. “They lived in the real world?”
“Of course,” Sera said as she considered me. “They’d still be here, if we Archons were paying attention to stop the humans in time. Why do you think monsters are so desperate to return?”
“I don’t understand,” I said as I shook my head. “Do you mean the rifts? The monsters
want to come back and what, live together?”
Sera tilted her head thoughtfully. “Perhaps not live together, so much as they want to take the entire world for themselves. It’s a revenge thing, you see.”
I gaped at her. We’d searched for so long for answers about the origins of the monster intrusion and ways to solve it, but Sera dropped information about events that happened thousands of years ago without a second thought.
“Tell me more,” I demanded. “Why are you imprisoned here? Why did the Archons fail to stop the humans?”
Sera tutted and unfurled her wings. “I have my dear sister, Phi, to thank for my imprisonment, unfortunately.”
I blinked in shock. “Phi? Is she an Archon?”
The thought didn’t seem far fetched at all. Phi’s devastating power, her angel’s wings, her enraged attitude toward humans, all of it indicated she was a similar being to Sera.
“Phi is an Archon,” Sera confirmed as her yellow eyes bored into me. “There were nine of us in total. Nine rulers over the monsters, and each of us was powerful enough to do whatever we pleased.”
“But something went wrong,” I assumed.
“We fought,” she confirmed. “We always wanted more power, especially those of us with less. I was stronger than Phi, and she imprisoned me for it with the help of some of the other Archons.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Not much family love, I see.”
Sera laughed again, and even after she stopped, the whole cavern rang and echoed eerily with the noise.
I supposed that was all the answer I was going to get.
If this Archon was related to Phi, it meant Phi was also capable of influencing human minds. I long suspected she had some unknown magic capable of changing Gawain, but what I’d learned today made that possibility far more likely.
“I need to know more about Phi,” I demanded. “I think a friend of mine was corrupted or possessed by her.”
“You want this friend back?” Sera asked as she cocked her head sideways.
“Of course,” I replied. “I want to save him.”
“I see,” Sera hummed. “I can help you do that, but it won’t come for free. Just as you have something you want, I have something I want. Would you care to trade?”
I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t had the best experience with Archons so far, and I wouldn’t trust any offer she made lightly.
“What do you want?” I asked suspiciously.
“Gryff, there is a reason I wanted a mage to come here,” Sera replied with a sharp smile. “I want to escape this prison, and I want Phi to pay for what she did to me. Much to your luck, you are the perfect person for this job.”
“So, what?” I asked in confusion. “I fight her for you? If she dies, does your imprisonment stop?”
Sera chuckled and stepped closer to me. “I would hardly command you to do all that alone. No, I’ll take my revenge for myself. All I ask is to be one with your body.”
She rushed up to me in an unnervingly fast move that was too quick to be anything but inhuman. I thought she would attack, but instead she stopped with a gentle hand on my cheek.
I gasped and stumbled away. “You want to possess me?”
She winked and advanced again. “Only a little,” she purred. “Your body in exchange for your friend back, that’s not so bad of a trade.”
“You’re nuts,” I snapped. “I’ll never let you take control of me. How would that solve anything?”
She stepped in closer, and I tried to move away, but my back ran up against the rough wall of the cavern.
“Come on,” Sera whispered seductively as she stepped closer.
The Archon pressed her naked, ivory-colored body to me, and her breasts squeezed against my chest as she trailed a hand over my neck.
“Get off, or I’ll make you regret it,” I snarled in warning.
Although, if what she said was true, and she was stronger than Phi, I wasn’t really sure what I could do to make her regret anything.
Sera blinked her predator-yellow eyes as she moved her other hand up to my temple. “I promise it won’t hurt.”
Suddenly, both her hands clasped my head on either side, and I found my mind under attack.
It was as if an enormous weight pressed against my brain from all sides, and I could feel a sinister force poking and prodding at my mind. I threw up a mental wall to protect myself and tried to push the sinister force away. It was strong, crafty, and determined, but each time it dug in a foothold, I strengthened my will and lashed out to scare it off.
Let me in, Sera’s voice purred from within my skull in that terrible whisper.
“No,” I grunted defiantly.
Sera chuckled seductively. There is no point in resisting. I will have your body. It will feel good. I promise. Just relax.
The invading force sharpened like a needle and dove into my wall. Pain rang through my mind as I struggled against Sera’s mental onslaught. The needle nearly pierced through, but I shook my head and shoved back with my willpower. The needle retreated, and I chased it to its source and lashed at it with a pulse of rage.
An inhuman hiss slithered through my head, but the mental attack snapped apart, and the invading force retreated as suddenly as it had first arrived.
The pressure in my head relented, and I snapped my eyes open as Sera leaned back and stepped away.
“You dare resist me?” she growled with seething anger.
Then she stretched her ebony wings out to their full length, and her immense wingspan blotted out the light of the crystal pillar.
The dark silhouette of Sera’s form trembled with fury, and the cavern began to shake as if an earthquake rocked its foundations.
“If I were at my full power, you would be an ant beneath my feet,” she bellowed. “I could snap your mind into a dozen pieces and never notice. You’re nothing but a grain of sand, while I am the ocean, the sky, and the earth itself.”
The cave trembled, and the crystal pillar in the center rang like the purest, clearest chapel bell. The tone swept through the space and made every crystal rattle and vibrate.
Simultaneously, the waterfall gushed faster, and the small stream flooded until water ran across the stone in rivulets.
I stepped forward into a shallow pool of water as I approached the Archon.
“Go fuck yourself,” I yelled back. “Make all the demands you want, but you’ll never have me.”
“If I can’t take your mind, I’ll simply have to beat you into submission,” Sera snapped.
She lunged for me with a terrifying speed propelled by her powerful black wings, but I ducked to one side as her white fingernails flashed like claws through the air.
I fumbled for my daggers and my bandolier, but both were missing. As a matter of fact, the only thing with me were my clothes and shoes, and my bag was gone, too.
Sera landed in a crouch with a feline movement that reminded me of a lion or a jaguar. In a flash, she lunged again, and I dodged away as her fingernails sliced through the space where I’d just been.
I followed my dodge up with a spinning kick toward her wing, since I expected it to be more fragile than the rest of her. She sidestepped, and my foot glanced off her shoulder as she hissed in pain.
“Give it up, Sera,” I warned her.
She bared her teeth as her yellow eyes glared. “I will have my vengeance, and I will have you.”
I threw a straight jab down her centerline, but she blocked it with one forearm. The other arm twisted around to stab toward my face with those long fingernails, and I winced when they scored a mark on my cheek as I leaned away.
She slashed again, but it was slower, and I dodged it as I sent a solid hook smashing into the center of her torso below her rib cage.
She yelped and lunged for me with both hands aimed at my throat. I was prepared to leap away, but this time, she followed her attack up with a powerful beat of one feathered wing that slammed into my chest and sent me to the hard stone floor.
I
grunted as the air left my lungs, but I rolled toward her and kicked hard at her knee before she could react.
She snarled as her leg buckled, and I used the opportunity to pull hard on her other ankle and send her to the cave floor as she lost her balance.
As I knew from bar room brawls, given enough time, any serious fight always ended on the floor. If you were smart, you committed to that fact and sent your opponent down unprepared.
I scrambled over to pin her shoulders with my knees, but the thought of knocking her head into the floor seemed thuggish, so I opted instead to send my punches into her stomach.
She gasped and choked out a desperate cry as her eyes flew wide, and I paused for a moment. Maybe it was her angelic appearance, or maybe it was just my sympathy for her long imprisonment, but I couldn’t bring myself to keep up my attack.
Pausing was a mistake, though, because she twisted her legs around my lower back and threw us sideways with an animalistic show of force.
I landed on a formation of crystals that stabbed painfully into my side and gouged long cuts across my ribcage. Sera’s hands found my throat and squeezed at my windpipe, but I planted both feet on her stomach and heaved her off me with a powerful kick.
Sera was thrown backward, but she snapped her wings out to steady herself, and the Archon landed nimbly on the balls of her feet. The dark angel flared her feathers as she ran for me again, and she landed a speedy kick in my gut that sent a flash of white pain through my stomach.
I choked around the blow, but I caught her next kick as it landed while I seized her heel with both hands. Then I pulled forward as I rolled, and I sent her body sprawling across the crystal formation.
Sera cried out in pain even as she clawed for my shoulders. Her hands grasped me by the collar of my shirt, and she heaved with freakish strength to crack my head across the crystal formations.
The pain was terrible, and it sent stars across my vision, but I wasn’t done yet.
