Soul Hosts

by Joseph Isaacs

  Chapter 24

  A Good Death

  A good death is better than a bad life- Jijari

  --

 

  The door slammed behind Jazlyn, as the floor flew unceremoniously towards her face. She threw her arms out, letting them take the impact, which they most painfully did.

  She pulled herself up, forbidding herself to cry. The Daughter Draconi does not weep. Her dress was adorned with caked mud. She wiped her hands off on it, lacking a hand towel. Her life style was going to take a rapid change for the worse, she realized sadly.

  “You were a fool to allow yourself to be trapped like this,” Asgaroth said. “I told you they would betray you.”

  Asgaroth’s words stung because they were true. The scent was abhorrent in the plague room and she felt instantly nauseous. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. None of the prisoners exhibited symptoms of any disease other than the one called hopelessness. Their faces were free of boils and lesions, if not the sad hangdog looks of people without futures.

  She recognized a few of the imprisoned magi. There were Ravenna's parents, a pair of Glower mages. They used to put on shows when Jazlyn was little, creating flowers of light in the sky. Jazlyn would tell them Ravenna was alive and well, after she’d calmed herself enough to talk without bursting into tears.

  There was Doblin, a Digger Mage. Unfortunately, the magic-eaters would siphon off the Source energy, preventing Doblin from being able to burrow an escape tunnel. Jazlyn recalled how the earth mage had dug out the new chambers in the Red Palace. It was incredible to watch him work, whirling the dirt with the sheer power of the Source. And this was how her father rewarded him for his service.

  There was Belza the Beast Tongue and her acolytes. None of them had the plague, and how could anyone consider their magic unauthorized? They were in charge of caring for Volkanus. The dragon was ill, and they took the chief Beast Tongues into custody? Her father was crazed with his insatiable lust for power, to the point of blind recklessness.

  If she ever ruled the Drakindom, she would do things differently. For one thing she wouldn't throw innocent people in prison. She’d outlaw chokers, high heels, and lima beans. But before she could take her seat on the throne, there was the minor obstacle of escaping prison, overthrowing her father’s government, and convincing people about the lima beans.

  “You jest like a fool, even without your friend Verica to egg you on,” Asgaroth’s said.

  “Why, do you know any good bone-tearing jokes? I have to do something to cheer myself up.”

  “How did the Silver Lady allow me to be placed with the likes of you?”

  “It was by request? I asked do you have any bone-tearing immortals you could put inside me?”

  “I never tore any bones.”

  “What?”

  “That was just a rumor to scare our enemies. The bones were already there that we used to erect the palace spires. I killed many though, have no doubt on that.”

  “Why don’t we focus on finding a way out of here? Perhaps Doblin can help us with his Digger Magic.”

  “They have a magic-eater in the vicinity. I can feel it siphoning away my Source energy.”

  A white-haired witch, with a cross-hatch of scars on her face, approached Jazlyn. By her side was a purple-haired Tulkarian woman and her son who was Jazlyn's age.

  The white-haired woman crossed her arms in a salute Jazlyn wasn’t familiar with, fists against her own chest. "I'm Night. Granddaughter of the Shadow Queen. She who shall rise again.”

  --

  A jolt of pain seared through Mavik’s legs, as he landed on the floor of the lower cavern. Water poured on him from the scagazi-created waterfall above. Battle yells echoed from above. There was fighting down here too. Screams and thumps from over on his left. He could hear his father’s voice. Where was Emerelda?

  His stomach twisted. Had the scagazi gotten her? He scanned for her, but it was almost pitch black, and everything just looked like big rocks covered in shadows.

  "By the light of Guardians, illuminate," Emerelda voice resonated off the stone walls. Coils of light slithered on her palms. As Mavik’s eyes adjusted to the sudden light, he was relieved to see Emerelda was uninjured, but Kelsen was on the floor groaning. He had a scagazi on top of him, and the two of them were wrestling.

  Emerelda grabbed Mavik's hand. "Come on, Mav. We gots to run."

  But Mavik didn't move. He stared at his father. I should let him die, Mavik thought, but somehow he found himself charging at the scagazi. He bowled it over and he the scagazi rolled around struggling to gain advantage. The scagazi was strong, and Mavik found himself underneath its choking grip. He struggled to break free, but its grip was too strong.

  Kelsen grabbed that scagazi, and threw it to the cavern floor. Kelsen's hands and arms were soaked red with his own blood as he grasped the scagazi in a choke-hold. Kelsen whispered, "Run, Mavik. I'll hold this one off. Run!"

  "I―"

  The veins in Kelsen’s neck bulged as he struggled to hold the scagazi down. "Let me do this one thing right. I wraithed all the rest up. Go.”

  Kelsen's pet rat scurried to Mavik. Mavik scooped up the rodent.

  Kelsen gasped, "Take care of her. I'm sorry, Mav. Now go."

  The mouse burrowed into Mavik's pockets. Mavik tried to remember what his father had named the rodent. Spark. He had called her Spark.

  “I forgive you,” Mavik said, a hot tear running down his cheek. Kelsen nodded slightly. His face was so pale.

  Emerelda grabbed Mavik’s hand, raising her other hand aloft, to light the room. They raced into a passageway. Spark’s clawed feet dug against him, as the rodent squirmed in his pocket. Tears ran down Mavik’s cheeks. It wasn't so much that his father was dead, but the realization that at least for a moment, Kelsen had been truly alive once more.

  Ahead, the floors were muddy and sloped downwards. The room filled with steam and grew hot. As they drew closer, Mavik could make out a stream of magma traversing the corridor thin enough to step over.

  "I got to rest. You be havin’ anymore water?" Emerelda's voice was raspy. They slumped onto a boulder. The warmth from the magma stream felt nice after a day of running through snow and ice.

  Mavik dug out his water skin from his cloak pocket, took a sip, and handed it Emerelda. She took a sip and handed it back to him. "We better be savin’ the rest. I be sorry about your father. It be hard."

  Mavik took the little rat out from his pocket. It was an albino, white fur with a pink nose.

  Emerelda petted the rat's nose. "She be friendly little bugger.”

  “Her name is Spark.”

  “Spark be a good name for her. Maybe he named her that because he knew there be a spark of goodness left in himself. In all of us."

  "Well, maybe not Skarak."

  "Who knows, maybe even Skarak?"

  "Just don't be getting yourself killed looking for it."

  Mavik was glad it was dark here, so Emerelda wouldn't see his tears. Men weren’t supposed to, but that didn’t mean they didn’t need to at times. His heart had frozen a long time ago, but he could hear the emotional ice cracking, as the glacier that had formed in his heart all those years began to crumble.

  “We best be movin’. Still not sure we ain’t bein’ followed. Wraithin’ hell, can’t seem to summon anymore Guardian energy.”

  They inched slowly through a dark, muddy tunnel, marching to the beat of the ominous heart-like sound which vibrated throughout the corridors. They made most of their way by sense of touch. As they went farther down the tunnel, the floor dampened. The corridors descended steeply. They held on to crevices in the walls to stop from falling.

  The water level rose past their waists, and they became soaked as well as exhausted, but were able to refill their water skins at least. Then the tunnel spiked upwards. At times they had to scramble for handholds because the ascent was steep. Then the corridor leveled out but began to curve
, coiling, and swerving left and right, until Mavik had lost all sense of direction.

  Exhaustion overtook them and they had to rest again. Hopelessness swept through him. Would they ever find a way out of this maze? Was there even one to be found? No slaves had found a way into the Lair of the Weaver, why should they be able to find a way out?

  “Faith,” Jijari whispered.

  He unwrapped the food they’d brought with them, scraps of bread and hard tack. They ate only half, though they were still starving when they put the food away. He leaned against Emerelda and closed his eyes for a moment.

  Just for a moment.

  --

  "This is beyond outrageous! I am the Draconess! I order you to release me. I will have your heads pickled for this."

  The mustachioed guard shook his head. “Well, Your Majesty ought to have thought of that before she plotted to overthrow her lord husband, hadn't she?"

  Jazlyn rushed to the Draconess, remembering how it felt when she’d been shoved in. “Stepmother. Let me help you.”

  The iron door clanged shut, as Jazlyn and the Tulkarian boy, Rif, helped the Draconess to her feet. There was a hint of sympathy in his sad smile. Jazlyn had grown to like the boy called Rif, as well as his mother.

  The Draconess stepped over to the iron door and pounded her palm against it shouting, "I am the Draconess, daughter of Kero, granddaughter of Borleat, descendant of the Dragonking. I order you to release us. Release me! You will be fed to the flames for this. Treasonous wretches! Open now or you’ll pay dearly!"

  Night stepped towards the Draconess and cleared her throat. The old, scarred woman made Jazlyn nervous. Night grabbed the Draconess’s arm. The Draconess whirled around and stared into Night’s scarred face with murderous indignation. She looked as if she wanted to call for her guards, before remembering that it was they who were imprisoning her. The Draconess’s voice sound more defeated than imperious as she asked, “What? What do you want?”

  "Did you know?" the old woman asked.

  "Did I know what?”

  "What your husband did to the former Draconess?"

  Jazlyn was caught off guard. She’d expected Night's question to be if she knew the Dracon had been arresting innocent mages. She hadn't thought about the question of whether the Draconess had been complicit in her mother’s fate.

  The Draconess stared at her. "What... she died during the birth of Jazlyn…my husband―"

  "And you let yourself believe this convenient lie? She was alive. They took her to the Isle of the Loons. She jumped into the burning water, calling out her daughter’s name."

  Jazlyn cringed at the words, tears filling her eyes. Her mother’s necklace felt warm against her neck. Jazlyn clutched at it, finding it strangely comforting. It seemed to almost whisper to her, like it was humming the dragon’s lullaby- a song her nanny used to sing to her when she was little.

  Sleep little dragon, sleep with a song

  All is not right, but all is not wrong

  The day will come when the shadows are long

  So sleep little dragon, sleep with a song

  The Draconess too seemed close to tears. She closed her eyes and put a hand against the wall to steady herself. "Had you told me this a week ago, I would have dismissed it as a lie. But now…it seems what I didn't know about my husband―."

  “You could have sought the truth,” Night shoved the Draconess’s shoulder, pushing her against the wall. Her scarred face was a hair breadths from the Draconess. The Draconess’s jaw dropped in shock. Night jabbed her with a finger. “It was more convenient to live in lies. You are guilty. When the Shadows come they shall claim you.”

  Rif grabbed Night’s arm. "She’s h-h-had enough."

  Night jerked her arm away from him. "No. Not enough. Not yet, but soon, vengeance is coming, like a dagger in the night. I waited so long in that tower. I supped on bowls of injustice spiked with sleep. I've seen the Shadow Queen arising again in the water and the stars. My grandmother will rise again, and when she does, then it will be enough. Then the darkness shall reach across the land and tear out the heart of those who have betrayed her."

  A woman's voice whispered in Jazlyn's head said, "Stop Night’s tirade. It wasn't the Draconess's fault."

  Who was talking? It certainly wasn't Asgaroth. Her mother’s locket…was it possible…could it be her mother’s voice? Dare she hope? She’d gotten her hopes up that her mother was still alive, only to find out she was dead. Jazlyn was probably hallucinating the voice.

  Night's face grew red. She shook a finger at the Draconess, "Guilty!"

  Jazlyn stepped towards Night.

  "It is my mother you speak of, and she would not condone such behavior. In her name, I ask you to stop this. The Dracon is to blame. If we have any hope of getting out of this, then we must work together."

  "Hope.” Night smiled a crooked smile. “Hope is black as night."