Blood for the Dancer

by Dallas Mullican

  “I do. Be quiet now, you’re going to be all right.” He caressed her cheek and dabbed the blood away with one corner of the bed sheet.

  “No. My time is done. Please understand, I owed Aamon everything, I could not refuse him.”

  Her contrition broke him. His head fell, and he cried into her bosom. Two friends gone now. Was he doomed to lose everyone he cared about? He looked at Kyra, a stabbing pain in his heart.

  Saerna must have noticed. “Protect her if you love her. Do whatever you must. They are coming. They will stop at nothing and show no mercy.

  “I know. I’ll be fine. Quiet now, let me take care of you.”

  She reached up and touched his cheek. Her body trembled head to toe as dark eyes faded, the light in them dimming with each urgent heartbeat. Dustan clutched her hand, trying to hold her to life.

  “I love you,” she whispered with her last breath. Her arm dropped, and her still body burst into a bloom of crimson illumination.

  Kyra hugged him, her head resting on his shoulder, chest pressed to his back. Dustan turned to her and stroked a lock of hair from her face.

  “You thought she was me?” Kyra blushed, but did not shy from his gaze.

  “I loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

  “And you loved her?” She lowered her face.

  Dustan raised her chin with a finger. “She was my mother, my sister, my friend. She taught me things I needed to learn. I will always value my experiences with her. But she loved another, there could be nothing lasting between us. I never viewed her as more.”

  “I understand,” she said with a demure smile.

  The pain of Saerna’s loss and the emotion swelling within him for Kyra clashed and took him to his knees. Kyra knelt with him, holding him close. She lifted his head into her palms, leaned in and kissed him deeply. That night they lay nestled together, the comfort of her body consoling his wounded soul.

  Sleep eluded him. He wanted only to hold her and push morning far away. The future frightened him, but losing Kyra terrified him, the lives of a thousand worlds paling in comparison. Two vast armies and the monsters of the spirit realm waited. Could he protect her? After more than a century, he still felt the twelve-year-old boy lying feverish, lost in a nightmare, crying out to god and mother to save him. Now a universe depended on him. It was too much. He was not up to this task. Somehow he had to find the courage and strength to see Kyra safely through. His self-doubt and desire waged a war inside, tearing him apart.

  He slipped into a restless sleep and dreamed of Shax and Saerna, his mother and father, the realms in their multitudes. All forms and figures faded…only Kyra remained.

  22

  Welcome to Hell

  Jagged peaks on a serrated line of mountains blocked their view of the land beyond. Dustan and Kyra had emerged from a portal far to the south, a desolate place seldom patrolled and never visited. A grueling trek across a desert of ice brought them to a steep ridge where below lay the mountain range’s base. Black stones littered the trench at the foot of the slope, offering rickety steps across the ravine.

  Dustan and Kyra looked like twins. Both wore their long hair in high ponytails. Snug leather pants sported her daggers at the hips. Blood Dancer lay in a scabbard fixed to the back of Dustan’s leather jacket. Their long-sleeved shirts, tight-fitting and flexible, moved without restriction—a valuable trait when their immediate future promised rugged terrain and furious combat.

  A rectangular door cut in the mountain stone appeared ahead. Billowing fog oozed from its mouth and gathered in wide murky pool. Dustan and Kyra eased into the mist and entered an expansive cavern were rough rock walls rose to a high ceiling peppered with stalactites. The haze swirled around their knees, viscous and difficult to move through as if a solid substance. A haunting glow of indeterminate color illuminated the grotto.

  “Go away. You don’t belong. Go away.”

  A high-pitched voice echoed off the stone, impossible to pinpoint. Dustan scanned the outcroppings overhead. A man ambled into view and peered down from a ledge twenty feet above their heads. He appeared ninety, though as spirits went, he likely had lived countless eons. A moment of bewilderment unbalanced Dustan as he glanced to Kyra. He still saw her and the man as human, though his spirit self should now be dominant. Nevertheless, the man did appear ancient, skeletal, with long spindly arms and legs, wisps of stringy gray-white hair falling past his shoulders.

  “We’re only passing through. We mean you no harm,” said Dustan, slightly amused at sounding like a character from a book.

  “Passing through, you say? No one passes through. Not for ages, not ever. You’re angels or demons, come to kill us all.”

  Dustan let his senses reach out…unaligned. “You are hiding from the war? We aren’t part of it. We’ve come to help you.”

  “Don’t need your help. Go away.”

  “Father, please let us pass.” Kyra addressed the man in a strange fashion Dustan did not understand. She bowed, keeping her eyes down.

  “Well, well. One knows their manners, but I’m not your father. Take those old courtesies and leave the same way you came in.”

  “I’m sorry, but we need to go this way.” Kyra pointed to a tunnel at the far end of the cavern.

  The old man shook his head, strands of gray whipping back and forth. “Not possible. We don’t trust you, aren’t going to trust you. Nothing you can do about it. Now, go away.”

  “I think we’ll have to proceed without his blessing,” said Dustan.

  “We don’t know what’s back there. Surely more of them.” Kyra stared toward the tunnel entrance.

  “Do we have a choice?”

  “No,” said Kyra.

  The old man disappeared from the ledge as they crept forward, Kyra taking the lead. “I don’t know this place, but we need to keep moving north.”

  “Maybe my energy will show them we’re friends.” Dustan unsheathed Blood Dancer and brought it to life.

  “Maybe.” Kyra’s agreement sounded half-hearted at best.

  The path snaked into the distance with the same abrasive rock surrounding them in a near perfect circle. Dustan dimly recalled a similar passage, but of ice. Kyra kept her eyes aimed forward, scanning the mist.

  Dustan felt a solid touch on his calf. He looked down, but could see nothing except smoky white. “Kyra. Um, we may have a problem.”

  Kyra peered at him with an arched brow. They paused, listening. She shrugged and took another step. A dozen figures exploded from the miasma. All withered with dim bluish auras, the decrepit unaligned grasped their jackets with gnarled fingers. Angry moans filled the tunnel and bounced off the walls. Behind them, another ten sprang up. Surrounded, with still more flowing in from the cavern and farther into the passage, Kyra and Dustan pushed and shoved the spirits away. After a momentary stagger, they came on again.

  “There’s too many,” shouted Kyra.

  “We have to fight,” said Dustan, waving his sword in an arc, halting the ghastly figures.

  “No. Don’t destroy them. They are unaligned. Old, lost here for ages, they are scared.”

  “They are scared?” Dustan pushed one back and kicked out at another. The scrape of their bones against the rock set his teeth on edge. “Okay, I’ll use Blood Dancer like a torch on Frankenstein’s monster.”

  Kyra shot him a confused glance.

  “Never mind. When I say now, haul ass.”

  He concentrated his energy into the sword. It blazed, casting a brilliant blue flame.

  “Now!”

  Dustan waved the blade into the faces of their attackers. They groaned and recoiled. He lurched ahead, rotating in a circle, fanning Blood Dancer in wide sweeps. The unaligned retreated from the sword’s path, but continued to follow. Kyra darted ahead. At the end of the tunnel, a smooth stone wall blocked their escape and created a shaft upward into the cave. Dustan stood with his back to Kyra, defending their retreat as the corpselike figures, perhaps a hundred or more, lu
mbered toward them.

  “Shit, now what?” he asked, still waving the sword.

  Kyra drew her daggers. As she had with the ice shelf, she used them to ascend the wall. The rock proved more reluctant to accept the blades as she jammed them into cracks and crannies. After gaining the rim, she vaulted over the ledge, leaned down and extended her arm. Her outstretched hand dangled well out of reach, even in the low gravity and with his enhanced agility.

  No more time. Dustan stepped into the tunnel, forced the unaligned back, pivoted and sprinted toward the wall. One foot landed ten feet up on the stone. With a hard push, he leapt backward into the chute, hit the opposite wall, and jumped again. In three quick crosswise leaps, he flew upward and grasped Kyra’s wrist. She tugged him onto the ledge where they both lay on their backs, chests heaving, gulping at the energy particles floating in the air like fine snow.

  “What the hell? Why did they react like that?” asked Dustan, trying to settle the anxiety.

  “Pockets of spirits dwell all over the realm. Lost areas out of the patrol zones, where they have existed for ages. So isolated, deep in the caves, they have withered in body and mind. Think of them like people shipwrecked on secluded islands.”

  “Didn’t look like Gilligan and the gang to me.”

  Kyra glanced at him, puzzled.

  “You lived in the human realm forever, and you never saw Gilligan’s Island reruns?”

  “I can’t say I did.” Kyra grinned. “I hope you can keep your humor. You are going to need it.”

  “Defense mechanism. I joke when I’m scared shitless.”

  After a brief rest, they proceeded through this new passage and down an incline littered with thorny weeds and thin, twisted trees, a faint illumination beckoning in the distance. They stepped out of the mountain tunnel through a marble archway constructed of columns crumbling with age. Taller pillars with wide, flat bases and carved in elegant swirls rose from a riverbed. The river ran lazily past a lush meadow painted in gold and emerald flowers that bloomed near the water’s edge.

  “Nice. Not what I think of when I imagine Hell, though.” Dustan knelt to feel the verdant bed of clover at his feet.

  “Hell is a term adopted for the Horde’s domain. A variety of terrains exists throughout the realm. None free of dangers.”

  Dustan gave her a sideways glance. Thanks for raining on my parade. “Got to enjoy the little things, you know?” He smiled and winked at her.

  “Taking time to smell the roses here will find something sharp in your back.” She frowned and tilted her head toward him.

  He nodded, feeling like a teacher had whacked his knuckles.

  Giant trees stretched into the sky, their dense limbs woven into a latticework overhead, an eerie, jade glow shifting through the canopy. A gushing waterfall cascaded in a rumble at the south end down a series of ledges, splashing into a pool. High up on the top ridge, structures erected on stilts stood in the middle of the river.

  “What are those?”

  “Left over from before the war, I suppose. There are ruins all over the realm.” Sadness layered her words. Dustan imagined any reflection on the past brought painful memories. He could relate. What might have been? A question best left unasked.

  The river did not spill into a sea or larger waterway, but a swamp covered in a foul slime. Contorted trees stuck out from the murky water. Branches like spiders’ legs craned down and sank beneath the surface. Mounds protruded in narrow circles around the base of the trees where stalks of thistle sprouted rich roseate flowers. Dustan leaned down to sniff the lovely blossom.

  “Nooo,” shouted Kyra.

  With his face inches from the bud, a spray of ecru powder shot into his eyes and mouth. He wiped the residue away with a sleeve and turned to see why Kyra raised a fuss. She stood at the swamp’s rim, her bottom jaw elongated and fallen to her feet. Dead eyes stared at him as her tongue lolled in the slimy water. Amber light bled across his vision. His throat constricted as his chest seized. Dustan sagged to his knees. Fish swam to him, investigating the stranger in their midst. Extended above the surface, their heads ripped open and spat lengths of slender black entrails that pierced his body. Waves of nausea shocked through him.

  “No need to struggle anymore. Come with us, son. It’s so peaceful here.”

  His mother and father stood an arm’s reach away. Their flesh sloughed off in bloody chunks and hit the swamp water with a plop plop. Bones jutted from their bodies at appalling angles. Mum and Da held out their arms, seeking to embrace him. Worms crawled from their eyes and noses in writhing globs. Maggots tumbled from their ears and mouths. A crack split his mother’s breastbone, a hideous face pushing past her sternum. Covered in putrid sludge, large ochre eyes slit like a viper’s glared at him. Pits above a wide carnivorous mouth puffed pernicious fumes. The creature’s circular hands, bearing fixed razors, spun with incredible speed. Now fully birthed, it tore into Dustan’s parents with a ravenous hunger.

  Dustan bolted, trying to escape the horror of the swamp. Flashes of searing heat scorched his face, the world fading to a dim blur as he fled. Dustan ran and ran until noticing the mire lay no farther behind him. His feet lunged up and down in a morass of defecation, sucking sounds smacking with each lift of his legs. He struggled against the excrement, vomit gushing from his nose and mouth. Mammoth creatures squatted at the edge of the mire. Long, abrasive tusks flipped him back whenever he managed to inch near the bank. Dustan sank as the filth filled him.

  Hands grasped his shoulders and urgent cries filled his ears as his body thrust forward, dunked beneath the malodorous water. Acidic liquid filled his lungs. He coughed and gagged.

  “Dustan!” Kyra stood behind him, ready to submerge him again.

  “Okay, okay. I’m all right.” He held up his hands to stave off another plunge. “For fuck’s sake, what the hell happened?” The visions gnawed at his mind, bile tickling the back of his throat.

  “The plant you smelled is called a Night Lotus. Very poisonous. Fortunately, I got to you quickly. The water flushed much of it, and your vomiting helped get it out of your system.” Kyra stared into his eyes. “Can you see? Does everything look normal?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” He stood on shaky legs. “Christ, I wouldn’t think spirits would be affected by poisons.”

  “Everything evolves according to its environment. The creatures and plants developed defenses to guard against whatever might prey on them.”

  “Good to know. Would have been better to know beforehand.” Dustan sidestepped an island where another of the Night Lotus grew. He glared at it as though his ire might offend it.

  “Assume everything here will kill you.” Kyra, seeming satisfied he would not fall on his face or try to eat his fingers, trudged back into the swamp.

  “Including you drowning me?” He offered a halfhearted grin and followed.

  They sloshed their way through the bog and found their progress impeded again. A colossal tree, larger than any dozen in the swamp combined, blocked their path. A nasty piece of nature. Three massive knots marred its trunk—one dead center as they faced it, another below the first and slightly off set to the left, the last, positioned on its right side. Two short, fat limbs jutted from its top in protracted horns. On each flank, a plethora of thinner branches stretched out like wings.

  “I don’t care for the looks of that thing.” Still feeling off balance, Dustan reached behind his head and touched Blood Dancer’s hilt for courage.

  “I see no other way.” Kyra wiped congealed liquid from her face with the back of a hand.

  Their only path forward lay beneath those ligneous wings. Dustan treaded closer through chest high cattails, fetid odors assaulting his nostrils. Splotches of gelatinous slime clung to his clothes. He poked the tree with the tip of his sword. A soft thunk, but nothing menacing. As he squatted to peer under the curtain of branches, a huge black eye popped open high on the tree’s trunk followed by an earsplitting roar.

  “Uh, Kyra. I
think the flower jizz is still messing with my head.”

  “No its not. Look out.” Kyra jumped, landing with a splash yards away.

  The wings gyrated. Serrated edges sliced through the bark, fixing in place along the branches. The knots yawned wide and bared rows of long curved teeth. The horns writhed, razor points poking from their tips. Roots beneath the surface whipped the swamp floor, sweeping Dustan off his feet.

  Entangled and held under, he managed to work his blade between his body and the corded wood, slicing it away. The tree thundered in pain. Dustan erupted from the water, swinging Blood Dancer blindly. He found Kyra, daggers whirling, cutting flailing limbs to his right. With his sword sweeping before him, he slogged to her side.

  “Aim for its eyes. I have an idea.” Dustan dove beneath the water, resurfacing several yards to her left.

  Kyra summoned an orb and flung it at the monster. Her aim was impressive. The large ball of energy struck between the tree’s huge obsidian eyes. Its limbs hammered the bog in her direction, seeming intent on ripping her apart.

  The tree rotated toward Kyra. Dustan took advantage of the diversion and bounded up the back side. Perched atop the creature, out of reach of the thick horns, he leaned down and whacked at the left-hand wings. He severed most before they turned from Kyra and focused on him, wiggling at face level like cobras swaying to a charmer’s flute. The set on the right, mercifully, remained occupied with Kyra.

  This is going to hurt.

  “Now, Kyra, dive and swim for this side,” shouted Dustan.

  As she vanished beneath the water, the branches reached for him and tore into his ribs. He ignored the palpitating stings and continued beating down. Kyra popped up and splashed toward the opening Dustan had rent. A forgotten root ensnared her. It lifted her and pushed toward the tree’s fanged mouths. She kicked and stabbed with her daggers, but it held on, squeezing tighter, pulling closer.

  “Dustan,” she yelled.

  Shit.

  Dustan leapt, Blood Dancer extended. The blade lanced through the root a foot from Kyra, and both of them crashed into the water. The tree had regained its sight and spun to face them. Its left side sported a half dozen remaining limbs, the right fan out of reach.