by K. A. M'Lady
“Drink,” she ordered as she pushed it more forcefully towards me. I had to take it. It was take it from her, or wear the stench all over the front of me. Hesitantly I brought the concoction to my lips, and made the mistake of breathing in. Immediately I could feel the gag mechanism begin as it rolled all the way down into the pit of my stomach.
This one was going to hurt.
Closing my eyes, I said a prayer to the earth and chugged the entire contents. It was the last coherent memory I had as the cup slipped from my fingers and numbness settled over them. The cup, as it hit the hard-packed earthen floor, shattered into a thousand pieces, echoing through my mind like a death knell.
“Change our life,
Rid us of the plague,
Start with Time,”
These children sing out to you.
From To Some God
A Season In Hell & Illuminations, Arthur Rimbaud
Chapter Eighteen
The acrid stench of rotting meat clung to the air like the breath of a sleeping demon on an island of the dead. The burning flame of campfires, with their flowing plumes of blackened smoke, stained the sky as one more piece of flesh was thrown atop its kindled glow. The smoke billowed in the air as far as the eye could see; a virtual sea of hopeless souls riding the waves of ash.
But the heavy burden of destruction lay at my door as I closed myself off from the vision.
Weightlessness consumed me as my body freefell through layers of possibilities, one scene flashing before me like a touchable tapestry of probability before leading me on to the next. A door would open and I’d be sucked through it like Alice through the rabbit hole. Beyond late for the party; its participants burning in hell.
I crashed headlong into the next vision as though slamming through a shattered glass, the effect causing me to raise my arms to protect my face. But there was nothing there to cut me.
I stumbled headlong into a field filled with glowing orbs, each one jutting and spiraling as though shot from a sling, only to have the light flash with crimson, sputter and die out before my eyes.
I had to blink several times to get my bearings, for the images to make sense. I stood on wobbly legs, my stomach tight with unease as the world before me began to make sense. It was a war between the Fey and the Sprite; their brightly colored wings glistening in the haze of sunlight, the bodies a haloed glow. Each ball of light that sputtered and died was a wee one meeting their end, the Lights of the world fading beyond hope and reason.
As soon as I comprehended the vision, I was thrust outward, like a mote of dust, into the next realm. Only this one was filled with high, white-capped mountains, as dark and menacing as the ends of the earth. They appeared as ragged and fierce as the Goblins that inhabited them.
I spiraled forward and slammed headlong into the face of the rock. The force vibrated through my body like a tuning fork cracked too many times. Before I could catch my breath or evaluate my pain, I was passing through the mountain’s center, thrust into its darkness below. Splashes of gray whizzed by me faster than my eyes could focus; crystals reflecting my light as it flashed and glistened at my passing.
Hammering and screaming echoed through my ears until I thought they would bleed from the melody of pain. I warped to a sudden stop, seeing before me the war of a lifetime: Ogres and Goblins in a bloody battle at the core of the mountain. I could only watch in silent horror as creatures hacked and thrashed each other, their blood soaking the floor and walls of the mountain itself as they’d done a thousand years before.
Bodies began littering the ground until a stream ran red and the voices of the dying moaned their sorrow to the silence of the mountain. And I, the unpretentious witness of a bygone war, as the brutality returned full force.
Before I could catch my breath, before an ounce of sorrow could sway me, I was thrust deeper into the Darkness. It enveloped me like a cloak set to warm your soul with, yet a chill seeped beneath my skin, and I trembled.
I was transported through the layers of Darkness, through all the shades of the Shadow Lands until I was standing in a tomb with an ancient-looking sarcophagus. I could feel the oppressive lack of air pressing in on my lungs. I could feel the weight of Darkness against my flesh like a million bee stings.
My eyes burned with the sorrow of all that I had seen, and my heart was heavy. As I looked around the tomb, I tried to comprehend where I was. Wondered what new horror this traveling vision wished for me to see.
I stepped upon the dais where the sarcophagus sat and ran my hand across the heavy lid. There were strange letters inscribed all around it, symbols I couldn’t understand. I stood staring at it for several minutes, its dusty surface so real beneath my fingers. And as I watched in stricken awe, a bright red liquid began to flow from beneath its heavy lid like the fount of a crimson tide.
It was then that I realized where I was. Whose tomb I had been brought to. As a knot began to form in the pit of my stomach and fear began to course through my veins like electric shock, I knew it could only be one creature’s deathbed--one monster’s burial tomb--the Great Father of the Death Stalkers.
Who else would keep their Lord buried for so long? Who else would be hidden in such Darkness?
It was said that to kill the Father was to kill them all. I shuddered as the blood began to flow more heavily from his tomb.
I watched, felt that bit of panic surge through me as the blood began to rise along the edges of the floor until it flowed with such force that the lid began to shake and tremble from the top of his tomb, as it sought to drown me in the rush of its overflow.
Then I felt it, like a tiny spark deep inside me, the shadow of knowledge that this was just another tide, a silent whisper like a dream; that it was just like any other tide. And if it flowed in one direction, then maybe it could flow another.
I took a deep gasping breath as I watched the blood rise towards me. It was to my feet, and then my ankles; before I knew it, I was in a pool of blood to my knees and still the vision did not remove me. My heart was hammering in my ears as I watched the blood continue to rise around me.
It began to slosh around the cavern as it increased in tempo, flowing from the sarcophagus. I knew I needed to stop it. That this needed to end. I didn’t know if I could make this work or not. I mean, this was supposed to be just a vision. Wasn’t it?
But the blood just kept rising. And my gut was telling me to try.
I took a deep breath and said a quick prayer as I set my hands against the opening of the sarcophagus where the blood was flowing like a fountain all over the front of me. The warm liquid poured between my fingers, down my arms, where it soaked into my clothes.
I knew I had but one chance. Closing my eyes, I called the power within me. I called my Tell.
I opened myself to the earth, the Light and the Darkness. With every ounce of my being, I ordered the tide of blood to flow back into the sarcophagus. I clung to its side, shaking with an innate force of will and determination to stop this one vision, to reverse the order of possibility, if it was within my power to do so.
I could feel the Light fill me, from the top of my green Pixie hair to the bottom of my feet. And just beyond its reach was the Darkness, like a shadow to my soul. I felt the earth penetrating every pore of my being as I forced the blood to return from whence it came. From whom it came.
I envisioned the sun, high and warm above the earth filling me with its liquid heat; the quick silver moon, full and round in a midnight sky; the two halves of my being burning brightly in the center of my body.
I called this power and felt the heat of its rush flow into me and through me as the blood began to slowly change its course. It was like seeing the reversed flowing water, only this had currents and bubbles of red. I felt the level dissipate from my knees to my ankles and further as it flowed in an arc back into the creature’s crypt.
My body shook with the force of my will, my hands trembling where I clutched the surface of the lid. My stomach was clenched so tig
htly that it almost hurt to breathe, but still I pushed on with my demand. Ordering the blood back. Back into the creature. Back into its tomb.
As the last wave rolled backwards past my arms and fingertips, the lid slammed shut with a deafening thud, dust flinging into the air from its surface, and I swear I heard the creature sigh.
I’d done it. Somehow. Now I was exhausted with the aftermath of power. I made to lean against the sarcophagus, hoping to catch my breath, my heart hammering in my chest, my lungs quaking and my knees weak with the overload. As I went to lean into the sarcophagus, I fell through the tomb as though it had never been, my body passing through it like a specter and the world around me becoming a dark oblivion of emptiness.
I remember thinking I want off this fucking ride as I spiraled out of control like a skydiver who’d forgotten his parachute. My brain was screaming, fuck, fuck, fuck, but my body was careening out of control in a void of utter darkness. And then I was too exhausted to care. I closed my eyes and waited for the landing, knowing it was going to hurt like hell.
The hot blood may still run laps through my veins,
Though what confronts me is a mile-high ice-escarpment.
From Song of False Hope by Otto Orban
Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes
Chapter Nineteen
It was nice to find that time was not my enemy, and that Kieran made an excellent landing site. Considering my glorious vision decided to transport me through whatever realm of hell I was in and deposit me headfirst through trees at a whipcord speed, I was lucky to be alive. I even told myself that as each branch slammed into and over me like a father beating a recalcitrant child until I pummeled to the ground.
Unfortunately, Kieran wasn’t lucky enough to come away unscathed, as I took him out with me when I dropped out of the sky like a giant rock and fell on top of him. He was gracious enough not to complain when the two of us landed in a heap in the middle of the nearest thorn bush.
Either Murphy really had a bug up his ass against me, or one of Ashlan’s tree women were the jealous sort. I wasn’t certain which, because after my wild ride through the vortex of doom, I was sent headlong through the whipping post of an elm and then deposited amongst the coarse vines and thick bramble. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, if you asked my opinion. Which of course, no one was. And I’m sure, come the morning, I’d have the bruises on my ass to prove it.
I looked down at Kieran as my breath returned to me in a hard rush. “Sorry,” I finally managed when I could finally draw enough breath to speak with.
“It is truly quite all right,” he said as he sat up with me in his lap. He leaned in closely to me and breathed deeply, his eyes fading completely black as his hands clutched my arms.
“You are covered in blood and the smell of death…” his voice faded, and he shuddered against me. There was the faintest whisper through my mind as I heard him say, “Father…” and his voice was both a blessing and a plea. Then he clung to me, burying his face in my neck as he inhaled the scent of me deep into his lungs.
I could feel the desire rolling through him, the deep-seated hunger. The overwhelming need to feed. Images flashed from his mind to mine. A million faces and bodies in various stages of undress, the delectable kiss of blood from this willing offering of blonde hair, or that of red hair, a petite figure with small supple breasts; his teeth buried in her thigh, a tall, lanky brunette; fresh blood upon large tits where he purposefully let her blood flow, just to lick it off.
And then the image of a dark shadow dressed in a scarlet dressing gown; his long gray hair glistening in the slow burning light of a wall sconce. I could feel the pull of power from Kieran as it danced through me. I could taste his hunger and the dark lick of need like raspberry syrup upon my lips.
My body clenched with it; every pulse a firework begging for release. Kieran’s breath was hot on my neck as he nuzzled me, licking the thundering beat of my throat. “I feel him, smell him on you,” he growled against me. “How is this possible?”
I tried to speak, to tell him of my journey; the visions with the Wanderling. But the words would not come out. My throat was constricting as Kieran’s hunger roared through me, and I was choking on his demand.
He growled at me in frustration, his body hard and rigid against mine, his face still buried in my neck, breathing in the blood scent of his Father. Without warning, he flipped me to the ground, hands trembling as he reached for my skirt, shoving it up to my waist. I cringed when I felt his hands upon my panties, tried to reach for his arms, but he shoved my hands away, pinning them in the grasp of one hand, before I could keep him from tearing the panties off of me with the other.
“I will take you, Rihker, your body and your blood. The Father will not have what is mine.” His voice had grown angry, filled with loathing. I didn’t understand his madness, but his need and hunger were overriding my senses.
He spread my legs, and I heard him unzip himself from his pants. My heart slammed against my ribcage like a locomotive out of control as he positioned himself above me. I was overloading on shock, too stunned to move, too lost in his need to make him stop. He was going to force himself on me, and I could do nothing to stop him.
This was not how I wanted things between us. Not how I envisioned we would end. Because Prophets help me, if he did this, we would certainly be over. There would be no further continuation to whatever I had considered with him.
I was shaking inside with fear, anger and Kieran’s hunger as I looked into the fathomless darkness of his eyes. His face had gone marble-smooth, and all emotion had escaped him. There was only the irrational hunger flowing from him to me by our bond of blood. And I was out of time, as I felt the heavy head of his cock at my entrance.
In panic, I shoved at him with all of my power, screaming his name with every ounce of Light I could envision.
I watched, fear coursing through me, as I called my power to my hand. In the charged silence that passed between us his eyes ignited into a crimson flame, their center a searing chartreuse the exact shade of red as mine as my power flowed from the core of my being, slamming full force into his heart.
Horrified I could feel it like a rope being flicked about the air, the whip-crack of power flashing through us like a bolt of lightning. But there was nothing I could do to call it back as the currents of flame and fire coursed through my skin. I channeled all of my power directly into him though our blood bond until he yelled out into the darkness, “The Light…oh, God, the beautiful Light,” before finally collapsing on top of me with a sigh of pleasure.
His breath had grown haggard, and his pulse raced against my hands as I held him against me. I knew I hadn’t killed him, since he still breathed; though I knew he didn’t need to. We were leaning against an old oak tree in a small clearing within the forest; its bark rough against my back as a small opening in the canopy above allowed the moon to shine down upon us. Dragon and Mercy had carried us away from our light show--apparently I’d scorched the earth around us in my attempt to keep from being raped.
Kieran still wasn’t quite himself yet, and it had been a good twenty minutes since I’d zapped him. I still had no idea what my power had done to him. All I could think to do at the time was call the Light. Apparently, I’d force-fed it to him.
I remembered Ashlan saying that Kieran had wanted to warm himself by my Light. I guess I’d left him feeling quite toasty, if his sigh of completion was any indication. If you asked me, it wasn’t a good thing.
“How is he?” Mercy asked as she squatted down beside me to check on her master. There was concern marring her pale face, and her eyes held worry for the first time that I’d seen.
“He seems to be only resting, but his heart is racing, so I’m not entirely sure,” I said as I brushed a lock of Kieran’s hair away from his chiseled face. If he didn’t stir soon, I was going to get really nervous.
Mercy nodded and made to rise. I grabbed her wrist. “Mercy, why didn’t you stop me? O
r at the least, why haven’t you tried to kill me by now?” I asked, wondering about our initial conversation when first we met. She didn’t strike me as the kind of Vamp to forgive or forget. Since I’d very nearly fried her boss, you would think she’d be a little pissier about it.
She looked at me carefully, then at Kieran before turning to stare off into the forest. I could hear a deep sigh rumble through her as she replied, “You came to my rescue, Rihker, and offered me your care, and like as not, Kieran was going to take what was not freely offered. Had you not stopped him…” her words trailed off, no further explanation being needed between us.
I stared at her in utter shock, my mouth hanging open. It was certainly the last thing I would have expected to come out of her mouth. Mercy was a hardass, and she didn’t seem the type to let something like zapping her master with Light go unpunished. I started to say so, but she put up her hand to cut off my words.
“I have offered you a reprieve, Rihker. I cannot say that it will happen again, so do not count on it. There may be a time that you may earn a punishment, and I will let it stand. But for now, this one you did not earn,” she said as she stared directly at me, a small understanding passing between us.
Somewhere deep inside the twisted little Irish bitch were still a few morals. Somewhere. I should count my blessings that she’d found them tonight.
I watched her retreating back as she wandered off to check the perimeter of our area. Kieran began to stir against me. Slowly his head moved from side to side and his lashes flashed as though he were wandering through REM sleep. Then suddenly he took a massive breath and sprang forward, his eyes wide open, gasping in several lungs full of air.
“Are you okay?”
He sighed heavily before turning towards me. “What the hell did you do to me, lass?” he asked, scorn and anger dripping from his voice.
