by JD Franx
* * * * *
Voranna Talavihr wasn't impressed that her fellow Dead Sister and ternion member managed to get herself killed because she'd been too noisy sneaking up on their grieving target. The fact Yrlissa had been able to use magic angered her far more though. The pendant Master Sythrnax had given them should have shut down her magic completely, but for some reason it failed, costing Lazia Marha her life. Yrlissa's spell was vicious magic, the likes of which none of the Dead Sisters had ever seen used anywhere before, let alone in the pendant's vicinity. If the pendant had dulled her magic even in the slightest... It confirmed what they already knew: Yrlissa Blackmist was the last surviving Guardian and the most powerful magic user to exist in any millennia.
“Gilaina, draw the blood we need from her,” Voranna demanded as she examined Lazia Marha's body and the still quivering root system. A small vine lashed out at her face and a spike-filled root coiled around her foot like a snake, but both were an instant too slow to make contact as Voranna jumped back. “Impressive, even unconscious the spell defends you. With magic like hers I... I want to be long gone before she wakes. This damn pendant nullifies our magic completely but doesn't seem to effect her all that much.” Gilaina held out her hand to the ternion's young apprentice, fourteen-year-old Kresian Dawn. Kresian gently placed the needle-tipped vials into her hand after unwrapping them from the soft leather she'd been carrying them in. Gilaina knelt down beside Yrlissa. Pulling her top down and to the side, the witch plunging the long needle into Yrlissa's left shoulder, just below the collarbone. Red blood and minute swirls of sparkling black began to fill the vial instantly, and she repeated the process twice more after the first was full.
“That's it, Voranna. The three vials are full, just like the Cardessa ordered.” Standing up, her foot hit something that spun away with a 'tink'.
“What's this?” Voranna asked, as it slid to between her feet. Picking up the object, she recognized the alchemy glass immediately. “How did this survive the fire? With a label undamaged... It says, 'Broken Blade'.”
“One of the assassins must have dropped it. An enhancement potion maybe,” Gilaina offered.
Voranna frowned. “Perhaps... Let's go.” Shaking her head, she tossed it into the rubble.
“Are you sure we're supposed to leave her alive?” Kresian asked, trembling slightly. “If she figures out we were behind this, she's going to hunt and kill us all. With magic like hers we won't be able to...”
“I'm well aware of that, apprentice, but the Cardessa's orders were absolute. If Yrlissa Blackmist dies, the portal will fail, and Master Kael will never return home to us. He is our only concern. Our job is done, now let's go. Leave Lazia's body here. Stupid bitch should have never made any ternion, let alone ours. Kresian, get the horses.”
* * * * *
Yrlissa was just beginning to come around as the Dead Sisters rode out of the farmyard. Her head thumped in rhythm with her heart from the savage blow. The pounding of the horses’ hooves as they galloped away added to the pain cutting through her skull. Laying in the ash and dirt staring at the sky, it was a full hour before she completely regained her senses. Still filled with grief and dread, she stared at the body of the young woman she had killed.
Finally, she approached the body and carefully removed the black leather hood. “What in all the nine dimensions of Perdition is going on?” she muttered, as confusion swarmed her aching head. The woman's face and throat were heavily tattooed with symbols of the Lower Brethren. “Witches,” she spat, understanding the vile women must have set everything up to fall on her guild. The aftermath would have been incredible had Yrlissa acted against her fellow Blades. But why go to the trouble of setting up the guild and then leaving evidence proving otherwise for her to find? Yrlissa winced, her throbbing head making little sense of the witches actions. Women like that always seemed to enjoy seeding strife in Talohna for any number of unknown reasons, if they even needed a reason. It mattered little for now. She lifted her left arm to turn the dead witch's head the opposite way and a jolt of pain sparked across her shoulder.
A closer inspection revealed three puncture marks on her shoulder. They only confused her further. Did they inject her with something or take something from her? She closed her eyes, focusing her inner sight—nothing. Her senses and innate immunity to poisons told her it was probably the latter.
“Asravan hasek,” she whispered, as a precaution. A pulse of purple Dyrannai magic flared beneath her skin, neutralizing any poisons in her body. With nothing else to do and now thoroughly confused, Yrlissa carefully collected the scorched bones of her husband and daughter, placing them in a soft leather travel pack from their storage shed.
There was only one place she wanted to bury them: the Meadow of the Fallen. Located deep in the Dyrranai Forest and surrounded by carved marble statues of the Higher Brethren, it was a place where the angel statues watched over the dead. However, there was no way to cross the Black Kasym created by Jasala Vyshaan's cursed Cataclysm. The mountain waterfall her family loved so much was the only other place she could think of to bury them. Gathering what little was left, she headed up the mountain path, leaving the witch to rot on the raised root system.
As Yrlissa headed towards the curve of the mountain path, a woman dressed in white stepped from the trees at the back of Cassel's property. She watched Yrlissa until she was gone from sight.
'I'm sorry, my dear friend,” Ella the White whispered. “I did what I could, Yrlissa. I'm so sorry, Cassie was already gone when we arrived.”
“Mistress?” Katarina Desolla asked.
“Yes?”
“Shae and her dark pelts are ready to take him...”
“Very well. What else is bothering you, Katarina?”
“Why save him, Mistress? Why risk all that happened here just to save one man who will never be the same...”
Ella shook her head. “We were not here to save him, I know. I came to save Yrlissa's child. She will never forgive me for what I did to her all those years ago, but I owe Yrlissa my life so I had to try. We were too slow, so we saved the man she loves instead. I'll find a way to return his mind. Jasala was so close...”
“But Mistress...”
Ella heard enough and waved her hand to stop her prodigy from continuing. She already knew what Kat was going to say. Pulling a small bottle from within one of her many pouches, she stared at the intact vial. Broken Blade Purge. Jasala Vyshaan's most amazing creation, but it was flawed—it blanked the mind of any who used it. The cost of magic, Jasala said, after years of being unable to eliminate the effect. Ella didn't care. If administered before the soul fled the body, the potion reversed the effects of the Broken Blades' assassination technique, even if the victim was a DeathWizard—unfortunately, no one had been there to give it to Jasala at the time of her death. Yrlissa would never forgive Ella for taking sides in the war leading up to the Cataclysm. But she would do everything in her power to return the man Yrlissa loved in an attempt to make it up to her.
“Enough time wasted,” Ella barked, shaking the memories from her head. “Let's go.” Staring down at Cassel as he lay in a trundle attached to one of the big werewolves, she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest. Bending over the ancient witch pulled his eye lids back, seeing only white.
“He's gone, Mistress,” Katarina said, softly.
“For now, my dear.” Ella smiled and headed to the front of her traveling companions as six monstrous werewolves rushed past her on their way to scout ahead. Shae, the pack's alpha female, stopped even with Ella and huffed. In wolf form, the white female walked on her back legs and towered over Ella's five feet, ten inches.
Ella nodded. “Go, Shae. Keep us safe.” Shae huffed a second time, howled, and then bolted with the other pack members hot on her heels. Ella took one last look back towards where Yrlissa disappeared.
“Be careful, Yrlissa, and be safe.”
The Dyrannai Elvehn people believed that the Higher Brethren watched over them
when they passed on to Paradise in the Underworld. The relatives of the deceased would carve a statue resembling one of the Higher Brethren, or angels; as they were commonly known, so that their loved ones were taken care of in the afterlife. A quick but very powerful enchantment imbued in the sculpted structure would allow the Higher Brethren to peer through the fabric of their dimension and recognize the offering as a symbolic request for protection. Yrlissa was a firm devotee of this practice and had done it many times. Far too many times, in fact. Even using magic, it took her seven days to carve the statue from the white marble that proliferated the Corynthian Mountain Range.
She buried the bones of her husband and daughter together at the foot of her monument in the glade by their waterfall. She stayed for seven more days while she prayed, mourned, and slept, remembering all the good times of the last two years. The Elvehn called such mourning 'the commune' and it normally lasted for years, but Yrlissa didn't have that kind of time.
Yrlissa couldn't remember when she had last felt as happy as she had been before that horrible day, and she failed to remember a day when she had felt as lost as she did now. When the seven days were done, though her heart and soul were still heavy with grief and sorrow, she left the glade and headed home to the guild, where she hoped she would still be welcome.
* * * * *
Voranna's ternion returned home to the DemonBone Swamps with the blood they needed, but likely wouldn't use for many years. The novices took care of their horses while they headed to the Cardessa's Cathedral to inform her of their success. The Cathedral was an imposing sight for the middle of a festering swamp.
Three stories high, the Cathedral was built on pillars sunk deep within the swamp. The north side of the marble building was decorated with carvings and paintings resembling the ninth level of Perdition, the home plane of the demon overlord, Garz'x. More carvings depicting the documented history of all DeathWizards who had reached maturity adorned the south side. A black marble statue of Jasala Vyshaan decorated the Cathedral's main hall. Gold, silver, and jade artifacts lined the inner walls, and a huge obsidian throne forged by the Orotaq sat on a raised dais at the back of the hall. The ternion headed for it immediately. The Cardessa was waiting for them, sitting amongst several soft furs on her massive black throne.
“Voranna, Gilaina, Kresian, welcome home. I see you are short one of your ternion. Would someone care to explain why?”
Voranna knew and accepted that their lives were the Cardessa's to take at any time; hesitating would gain her nothing. “She is dead, Cardessa. Yrlissa killed her with magic, even though we had Master Sythrnax's pendant.”
“Is that an excuse I hear, my dear?” the Cardessa said, with a touch of menace.
Shaking her head, Voranna bowed. “No, Mistress, it is merely an explanation.”
“Very well, Voranna, get up. Yrlissa Blackmist killing only one of you during a direct confrontation is an incredibly good day. Burn Lazia's body and set her soul free to join our lord, Garz'x. You have the vials of Yrlissa's blood, I trust?”
Voranna nodded as she handed the leather wrapped vials over to the Cardessa. “Yes, Cardessa, but we left Lazia where she died. Her foolishness almost killed us all.”
The Cardessa frowned. “Then you will return on the morn, alone, and bring her home. She was a Sister, if you cannot set your personal feelings aside perhaps your ternion needs a new leader. Until He returns, our souls belong to our Lord, Garz'x. Lazia can only get to his side through the fires of Perdition. Leave a Sister behind again, Voranna, and you will join her in the pyre—after you suffer the agony I will inflict on your body for abandoning a sister in death. Understand?”
“Yes, Mistress, I'll return for her at once. May I ask when we will try the ritual?”
“Sometime during Kael's twentieth year of life, over a decade from now. Why?”
“I would like the opportunity for my ternion to conduct the ritual for you, Cardessa.”
“After abandoning a Sister in death, be grateful you still have a lead position, Voranna. Besides, I've already granted the responsibility to Arabella Ondoloth. Her ternion will begin training in six months.”
Bowing once more, Voranna replied, “Yes, Mistress, as you desire.” The Cardessa dismissed the ternion and left the hall. The two women and their young apprentice retired to their room. They had not been home in many long months and Voranna would be leaving again at first light, alone.
Chapter Six
Eleven Years Later
The DemonBone swamp had been a hectic place for many weeks as the Dead Sisters prepared for the ritual that would return a banished Death-Wizard to the world of Talohna. Arabella Ondoloth was in charge of the ritual's setup and would perform the actual spell herself. The blood of twenty-four chaste men and women would be needed to transcribe the two inverted glyphs onto the floor of a building that had been built for rituals just like this one. The Dead Sisters had been stealing young boys and girls for over a decade in preparation. Dozens of magical herbs and plants had been gathered and dried, or crushed and even chewed; everything then set aside until it was needed.
The blood was drained from the twelve men and twelve women. All their hearts were removed and placed in the urns at all the corner points of the two glyphs. Arabella would then drink the blood mixture from the betrayed Guardian they had acquired eleven years ago, holding it in her mouth for several minutes before spraying it across the glyphs. The bloody tincture would pull a small piece of her soul with it upon leaving her mouth, the traces of similar magic within Yrlissa's blood would allow Arabella to identify Kael. The remaining soul magic and blood sacrifice would create the power needed to open a dimensional doorway to the world where the ArchWizard Giddeon Zirakus had banished him, their DeathWizard, on the day he had been born, over twenty years ago. Arabella's two ternion sisters, Darthinia and Verrysa, would then cast anchor and retrieval spells given to them by the demon overlord Garz'x. The spell would send ghost-like chains through the rift and drag their DeathWizard into the dimensional gate, eventually bringing him home.
This would be their second and final try. Their attempt the day before had failed, returning only pieces of rock and mortar along with a hat and bottle of brown alcohol from a stone bridge. The rare supplies and invaluable vials of betrayed Guardian blood would be gone with this second attempt. It was their final chance; there would never be another opportunity, mostly because they would never get close to the last Guardian again. The fresh hearts were lit by novice Sisters and instantly began smoking profusely, the flammable mixture slowly released the mist-like power inside—it overflowed the urns and drifted to the floor where the magic seeped into the blood-lettered glyphs. Arabella poured the contents of the tincture into her mouth and held it, her face paling to a shade of white. After several minutes passed, Darthinia and Verrysa prepared for the retrieval spell, anchoring their magic into the ritual room's floor. As Arabella spewed the contents of her mouth across the glyphs one more time; the spray tore raw energy from the core of her soul as the glyphs powered up the activating dimensional rift.
The dimensional doorway ripped open with a gut-wrenching crack of energy, a horizontal column capped by a spinning vortex on each end connected the two different dimensions.
Blood and traces of sparkling black dripped from Arabella's lips. The magical tincture created a glowing halo around her target making him easy to identify.
“It's him! The younger one beside the red-haired woman.” Arabella barked, collapsing to her knees, exhausted. Darthinia and Verrysa simultaneously barked the commands to activate the retrieval spells. They watched through the tears in both dimensions as the ghost-like chains shot out, grasping the young man. The magic dragged him backwards off of a wooden bench and into the mouth of the first swirling vortex. He screamed in agony, reaching for help. Unexpectedly, black magic erupted from his elbows, snaking down his arms and out of his hands. The dark energy snared the tall man and young woman who were sitting at the table, pulling them bo
th into the bridge on the far side. A second concussive detonation and a bright flash of energy lit up the inside of the open rift as a third dimensional doorway opened between the two swirling vortexes and a flood of foreign, emerald-green magic poured in causing a devastating chain reaction. The explosion blew the Sisters from their feet, tossing them across the room.
When the dust and smoke settled, Kael and the two people he dragged into the rifts were nowhere to be found. Some other power had interfered, nearly killing everyone.
“Giddeon gods-damned Virakus! Bastard ArchWizard,” Arabella screamed, knocking over two of the heart-filled urns. “I want to know how that fool or his pet prodigy broke into our dimensional corridor. Now!” she demanded. Darthinia and Verrysa regained their feet and immediately began searching the ritual room so Arabella could take a report to the Cardessa. It was a failure that would land solely on the shoulders of their ternion, but Arabella had seen the young man enter the portal, pulling two others with him. He had to be somewhere in Talohna. The other two would be dead, the rift was only designed for one—the first to enter. If the Cardessa didn't take their lives for failing to bring their messiah home, all they would have to do was find him.
How hard could that possibly be?
* * * * *
Yrlissa Blackmist followed Rath Gasette for weeks. Guilty of killing a retired member of the Broken Blades Guild of Assassins, Rath was already a corpse, but she wanted to be sure of his routine before she acted. As the guild's only remaining High Commander it was now her responsibility to hunt down and kill those who had crossed the guild in any way. However, Rath worked as a collector for the largest crime family in the Blood Kingdoms, the Talos. Though not related to them by blood, he held a respectable position in their organization. She had to be careful. Yrlissa never cut corners, especially when it came to such a well-connected and dangerous man.
