Realm Book Three - Illuminated Death

by K. A. M'Lady

  Gasping, I clung to the floor where I had fallen; my eyes wet with tears of pain I could not shed. My heart raced with fear I would not show. And the wind was gone as though it had never been.

  Jade and Drae stood in the corridor slack-jawed, hands cleaving to their chests. Pain and amazement shone in their eyes. “What the hell was that?” Jade asked when he could finally draw breath. Slowly I scurried up the wall. Gimlit helped gather me to my feet.

  “That,” Drae began gruffly, his voice hoarse from lack of oxygen, “was the Lady Arwin, Rihker’s maternal, full-blood Pixie Grandmother.”

  “What the hell did you do to piss her off?” Jade questioned. The stunned look in his iridescent eyes held wonder, his voice steady. I knew that he was totally serious. But I also knew that no matter what had been done, or was about to transpire, he would still be beside me at the end of this night. It was there in his stance, the quirk of his smile and the wild gleam of his eyes.

  “I am afraid that Rihker just so happened to help the Court to condemn her to the Vortex of Suppression,” Drae replied, his voice cold of emotion.

  “When the hell was that? Yesterday?”

  “When she was still but a child...A mere child of seven, and purely human.” I could hear a glimmer of delight seeping in around the edges of Drae’s voice that somewhat pissed me off. That whole night was another stain on my memory that I didn’t like to think about, but sometimes did. The Court had used me well that night. They had lied, connived, scammed and tricked me, but good. But, as Drae had said, I was a child. Seven in age. What the hell did I know? At that time I didn’t even have any powers. Not one Tell in sight. One would think that it would have turned me against the Silent Court.

  What’s that old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? After that, I swore to myself that if I was ever going to be used by the Court in the future, I at least would have a better, closer understanding of how they worked.

  “I take it by the welcome she’s still just a wee bit pissed off at you?”

  “You have no idea,” I replied, wiping the sludge off my backside. To say that this was going to be a very bad familial visit didn’t even begin to sum it up. Some nights, illusion is all. Others, I should just mind my own business and stay the hell out of Hell.

  Chapter Nine

  She explodes, rages

  I am watching a beautiful storm.

  If any other woman’s glacial look had magicked it up.

  From Immortal Instant – Marko Vešović

  Translated from the Bosnian by Chris Agee

  I wanted nothing more than to turn around and run the other direction, but instead, I stood in that opened doorway, chest heaving and pulse raging. The overwhelming desire to vomit was so enormous I could taste it in the back of my throat. Here’s hoping I didn’t get it on my shoes.

  “If you’re going to upchuck, do it out in the hall. This shithole you dumped my ass in is bad enough without having you puke all over it too.”

  And the cordial visit begins, I thought dryly, trying to stifle a laugh. I had to give the old Pixie her due, she definitely had balls. Not only had she just tried to blast me into a human Popsicle from within her shimmering sphere, but almost twenty years in Hell hadn’t managed to deplete her sarcasm in the least.

  “Well?” she questioned without further fanfare.

  “Well what?” I asked from the entry of the door. I at least was standing, despite that I hadn’t quite forced my unsteady legs to cross the threshold. My stomach was a solid ache of knots. A lump the size of my fist remained thrust tightly in the well of my throat while I stood there wishing a million other wishes of being anywhere but here. And we all knew about wishes in Hell—Burn a Pixie’s wings to dust…

  “For the love of the Prophets. Get your sorry, half-breed, good-for-nothing bum through the damn door and let me see what the years have wrought,” she scolded. “Before I think better of it and decide to blast you again.”

  It was that well-received welcome that brought me those next three steps, pushed me center stage, then embedded my feet to the floor. My knees were locked so hard one would have thought the clink was the crashing of bones.

  The room was far more than I expected. Lady Arwin’s fall from grace almost more than I could bear. Whoever said grandmothers were sweet, old women good for the love gained by a person’s soul was completely full of shit. If this one had one speck of love left in her crusty old soul, I’d sprout freaking wings.

  Ancient Pixie lore states that we are the fair folk that once walked with angels, but we were never quite good enough for the Light of Heaven. Nor were we vile enough for the Darkness’ never ending pain. So, the Prophets, in all their wisdom, sent us to guard the Realms of the earth. And so, part of the Keepers we became. Watchers, if you will, ore’ the Worlds in Between.

  There are those among us, however, that have always sought to protect The Way of the Light and to guard against the impending Darkness. For it is written: Mother Earth was given in gift from the Light and, that the Darkness shall only walk her shadows amidst the encroaching Realm of Night.

  Yet the Darkness has always sought to spread its taint on the world. To cover it with a thousand plagues of hopelessness. To feed on the world’s destruction and reap the Wild Wind.

  Over millenniums the Darkness has lied, connived, stolen, and murdered to spread its reign of madness throughout the Worlds in Between. To corrupt the Realm’s of Man and Other alike. Those of weaker ilk have fallen victim to its cold and calculated whispers. To its lies of soft seduction and its wiles of destruction, while the Darkness needled its way inside like larvae amongst the flesh of dead. Burrowing itself deep into the core of their deepest desires. Promising everything they could every hope for. Answering all of their wildest dreams.

  Then, once the Darkness had you, the warm tendrils of want would latch onto their heartstrings like a love surrendered and the cold would settle in. The pitch of blackness would steal across the heart through its frantic, final flutter. Breath would seize, hopes would fizzle and all the Light in their aurora would fade under the stain of ebony while hate, anger and total obliteration consumed their soul. Until nothing remained but the shell they once called self. They would then become a husk filled with ruin and Darkness; a marionette of madness left to play Darkness’ sinister, morbid games.

  I caught a glimpse of that Darkness looking back at me from the illuminated, strangely shimmering shell that separated the Lady Arwin and myself. Her large, almond-shaped eyes glimmered oddly in the shadowed enclave. They were eyes that appeared a sort of sooty coal color that somehow, in odd blinks and glimpses danced with iridescence despite their dark filmed haze. They were striking and captivating. Beautiful and desolate.

  It made me wonder if they once gleamed like diamonds or newly fallen snow. If they glistened like moon dust when the world is still and waiting for one more brilliant, icy crystal to fall from the Heavens and take its place among the millions of others. Knowing still, in its breath-taking free-fall that this one will be more amazing, more miraculous than all the rest. The kind of brilliance that inspires hope.

  I blinked away the wistfulness and looked at my grandmother for the first time in twenty years. Knew as I took in her transformed features that hope no longer dwelled in the shell that wavered before me. For beyond the tranquil beauty I knew nothing more of her former self existed but pain. And despite that I had not known the person she was before the call of the Darkness, she still managed to appear oddly beautiful to me. Magical and intense.

  Strangely—for me—whenever I thought about what having a grandmother meant, she still bore that special kind of hopefulness I had when I was seven and had first learned of her. It’s the kind of hope that burns in your belly, that only children recognize, dream of and understand…The kind of magic that feels like, hopes for—no, longs for—love.

  I blinked and the feeling was suddenly gone. Lady Arwin still stood before me, just beyond the Vortex on a d
ais of black stone limned with silver. The step leading up to the dais was weblike. It crawled towards her, each vein intricate and beautiful as it wove over and around the dais. Spreading outward, upward, consuming everything in its path. Like endless lies and deceits.

  You might have expected some royal throne for her to sit upon, but no, there was no chair. Only a chaise wrapped in black velvet, trimmed with mahogany. It was here she stood; straight, tall and regal. Beautiful, despite her age. Lovely, despite her disfigurement.

  What had once been the icy hue of arctic tresses, cascading like a waterfall or the living flow of winter wrath coursing from head to knee, had become the color of churned ash, walked upon, trampled over and shoveled by the damned. Hair that still hung loosely, but in a straggly mass just below her neckline, the ends singed—a halo of vainglorious pain.

  Then there were her wings. The most illustrious, glorious and strikingly illuminated and irreverently respected of the Pixie treasures—her magnificent, iridescent wings were now nothing more than scorched, knotty husks protruding from her shoulders, the ends blackened and ripe with pus. The wings themselves were completely singed away, leaving her with nothing more than the raw, blackened memories of her painful disgrace. A Child of the Light’s inexcusable fall from grace.

  A tremor swept through me. Sadness. Even pity. Remorsefully, I wondered if I had brought her to this despair. But no, not I. She was Hell-bent long before I’d known of her, her course lain, time measured. A dark path set.

  “Do not look so ill and bleak, Rihker. Tis the same Darkness flowing in your veins that sweeps through mine.”

  She was right. I couldn’t blame myself. It was futile. But we were not of the same ilk. She chose the Darkness. Chose to walk its vile path. To let it seep into her soul, to consume her. To take over her life. She allowed it to take hold of her and all of the power she possessed to do harm against the innocent of the world. No, I couldn’t blame myself for her downward spiral into the depths of evil’s labyrinth. But I could blame her for the havoc she chose to spread upon the world.

  My Darkness was given in birth. It was only a part of me. Half of what made me whole. It’s what I chose to do with it that mattered.

  “Ah,” she stated, a dark seeded glimmer of knowledge burning within the depths of her coal-dark eyes. “The child has been learning. But tell me?” she questioned casually, strolling back and forth before the chaise. “Why seek me now? What knowledge is it that you seek?”

  She instantly stopped like a hard thought, waved her hand in the air before me and I was just instantly rising off the ground, the air around me pressing inward on all sides. My chest grew tight, my breathing frantic while I watched my grandmother, Lady Arwin, glow an insidious shadowed haze. Then I felt the push, her mind pressing against mine. At first a subtle sweet whisper said, Let me in. Then harder and harder the pressure built while I fought it.

  “If you fight me, I will tear you limb from limb,” she boldly stated. I could hear a scuffle coming from the direction of the doorway. Bodies slamming against a door that I knew was not there. Anger coming through to me in waves.

  I knew Gimlit, Jade and Drae were still beyond the room, a room that now rang with Lady Arwin’s vindictive laughter. “Fools. Did you think that your Vortex could suppress all of my powers?”

  “If you harm one hair on her head, Dark Witch, I will slay you in your dreams where the veil of time is the thinnest and your hopes will ne’re be spent!” Gimlit’s voice was filled with desperate anger, his ire echoing through the small enclosure. I knew his hatred of my family ran deep; for the first time I wondered why. Only Lady Arwin’s maniacal laughter answered.

  Soon the pressure became almost more than I could bear. My lungs felt like they were being crushed. My throat began to close as though a hand were clenched around my windpipe. In my head the terrible weight of pressure continued. Dark thoughts and repression slammed against my will until I could take it no more. The weight, a heavy lodestone, was just too much to bear. My surrender an inevitable and impending doom.

  It was Queen Corral’s suffering Light only this time my world swam with Darkness. My air filled with noxious plumes of stagnant anxiety. My vision swam in a lake of suffering. Before long my body grew ripe and bloated on agony and pain, misguided and unspent as it filled with its Darkness. Only this was more than I could willingly suffer.

  The echo of my scream sounding my surrender was the last sound that I recalled hearing. Then I felt the cold, tensile grasp of Lady Arwin’s embrace envelop me. In the Darkness of my fragile mind, it soothed the disquieted monster and eased away my painful aches. She became my only hope for comfort.

  Still as death, I was silently afraid.

  Chapter Ten

  The ancients would have said her

  Stubbornness augurs something. But these are fever marks

  Incapable of understanding. The beginning of agony?

  If you ask for them, your requests will be granted.

  From In the Lake Region – Tomas Venclova

  Translated from the Lithuanian by Ellen Hinsey

  “So, my child?” the sweet, darkly soothing voice questioned while gently brushing the tendrils of hair from my face. “Tell your Na-Nan what it is you seek.”

  It took a force of will to breathe. To blink past the strain of oppression and open my eyes. I was definitely less impressed with the scenery now than I was…err, um... How the hell long had I been out of it? And how did she get me inside the Vortex with her?

  I watched her eyes sparkle like dark onyx glistening in a field of new fallen snow. The glint of a smile sparked like flint; mysterious and wry. “Not long have you slumbered. Though long enough for me to learn many things from your slumbering whispers. Things I’d not have learned while you were beyond my reach.”

  She continued to smooth my hair from my face. My head was cradled in the soft folds of her lap while she held me close. It was strangely comforting, this closeness. A gentleness she imbued that even my own mother had never possessed; not once having held me this way.

  The woman who’d birthed me had never touched me with any emotion other than hate. So why was it that my grandmother did so now? After all this time? Despite my betrayal of her? What did Lady Arwin hope to gain from me now that she had me within the Vortex with her? And how the hell did she manage to do that in the first place? I had thought the Vortex of Suppression would suppress her powers—hence, the suppression. Could the damn Silent Court do nothing right?

  “No. They cannot,” she boldly told me. “Make no bones about it, Rihker. The Court uses all to get their way. They will step on, murder, repress or commit to the Shadow Lands any and all who get in their way. They will use every means within their grasp to become the ultimate source of power, be it Light or Darkness.” Her voice rang with coldness and a far-off look of remembrance shone in her eyes. The lingering tinge of her power rode my flesh like the voltage of a coming storm. Power imbued with the taste of Light and Darkness. Power familiar, but not my own.

  “There is no end to how far they will sink themselves in the mire to suit their own means,” she continued. “Even going so far as to use a mere child to capture one of their own.”

  I pushed myself up from her lap and turned to face her. “What do you mean, ‘One of their own’?”

  “It matters not now. You’ve come for other reasons. More important reasons than trudging through the past. That day will come soon enough.” She stood with a flourish and strode across the small enclosure of her prison, stopping before a stand that held an ebony chest. I hadn’t noticed the stand or the chest until the moment her fingers touched its latch, blending as it did with the shadows. “There are things you must know. And things you want to know—yes?”

  She turned and looked at me with those dark eyes. So level. So cold. I couldn’t help but wonder why she had gone to such lengths to get me inside with her only to help me. What did she hope to gain by helping me? And was she truly helping me, or was it just
more smoke and mirrors caused by the Darkness. Whose game was I really involved in? Whose pawn had I become?

  “We are all pawns, Rihker. Truly you must know that by now.”

  “What is your deal, exactly?” I couldn’t stand this any longer. I could feel the agitation rising inside of me. Too many questions. Too many deceits. Deception and chaos were all around me and closing in way too damn fast. I had friends to rescue. An ancient, powerful book to find. One sadistic Vampire bitch to ram a stake through. I still had to find someone to watch over the Land of the Light. Trying to figure out if my own grandmother was going to try to charm me, possess me or burn a hole through my core with some vile black sword of dark destruction was about the last nail in my coffin.

  Ooh, maybe that was a bad choice of words. But seriously, this whole damn day was becoming some burnt-assed shit on buckwheat toast.

  “I see that Maebe is lacking in her instructions again. Really, must I do everything?” Exasperation oozed from every word like pus from rotting flesh. Somehow, I knew that my visit with my Na-Nan wasn’t about to get any better.

  Opening the chest, she took out a black silk bag that appeared to hold something round and somewhat heavy from the way that she clutched it so tightly in her skeletal hands. Turning to me, she said, “Sit, child. Sit and know what you are.”

  As she approached I could hear the bag humming. Melodic, whimsical and mystical, the strange tune called out to some distant piece of me. I felt my knees weaken and panic rise from the pit of my stomach to the middle of my throat.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked, pointing towards the bag while I unconsciously took a step backwards, away from her and from her trinket bag of hou-ha.