by Watson Davis
“I am not calling that Onei scum for help,” Dyuh Mon said, turning from the cabinet and moving to the altar. “Hold her.”
Lunan leaned against the altar opposite from Dyuh Mon, pressing his forearm against Sifa’s throat, leaning in against her collar bones, the fingers of his other hand gripping her thigh, digging in. She kicked and punched at him.
Dyuh Mon grabbed one of Sifa’s wrists and cast a spell, affixing her wrist to the altar with webbing. His hands moved to her other wrist, and then to her ankles.
Lunan backed away, panting from his exertions.
Dyuh Mon returned to the cabinet, whispering to himself as he searched through the bells and goblets, the candles and bottles.
“Ka-bes?” Tears of rage and anger streamed down Sifa’s cheeks.
Ka-bes looked up with pain in her eyes. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry,” Sifa said, straining at the webs on her wrists and ankles, gasping for breath. “I’m sorry I ran away.”
Lunan stepped back to Sifa’s side and slapped her face. “Shut up or I will shut you up.”
“No, don’t concern yourself with that,” Ka-bes said, her body shaking, her head bowed and her eyes closed. “I understand. You had to find your mother.”
“No.” Sifa gritted her teeth against the sensation of thousands of tiny fingers poking her, prodding her, caressing her, welcoming her. “You are my mother. And I lost you. I dragged you into this when I should have just listened to you. I’m sorry.”
“Uh.” Lunan shook his head and then spoke a word and gestured. Sifa opened her mouth to speak but no sound issued from her throat. Ka-bes tried to respond, but no sound came from her lips.
“That’s better,” Lunan said, moving back to his position at the foot of the altar.
Dyuh Mon chanted with his back toward Sifa, rocking from one foot to the other. Lunan joined in the chant with his head bowed. Sifa pulled at the webs at her wrists and ankles but could not move. The altar dragged at her, seeming to suck her back into it, the magic enshrouding her, numbing her.
Something clicked, out of rhythm with the chant, the clicks growing louder.
Dyuh Mon turned, now holding a gold and silver dagger at his chest, the hilt fashioned in the shape of a demonic head, the black blade its tongue. He sprinkled a powder over Sifa, from her hips up to her head and she held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut as it fell on her face.
Sifa’s chest burned. She opened her eyes to find wisps of smoke rising from her body from gleaming runes. Dyuh Mon waved his hand in the air, his forefinger inscribing magical symbols that glowed above her while those same symbols burned into her chest, into her soul. She opened her mouth and screamed but no sound escaped her.
Dyuh Mon loomed over the altar at her head, whorls of magic coalescing around him as he chanted. Lunan chanted with him. The click-click-click sound grew ever louder. The stink of brimstone and Sifa’s burning skin clogged her nose, gagging her. Dyuh Mon raised the knife, sparks flying from the blade.
In a faraway place, people squealed in agony, their cries rising in volume. Dyuh Mon’s voice echoed and it seemed as if more than Dyuh Mon and Lunan chanted, as though a whole chorus of infernal beings added their voices to his.
Dyuh Mon drove the dagger downward at Sifa’s chest, toward her heart. She could not move.
A finger’s breadth away from her skin, the dagger stopped. The gemstone in Sifa’s necklace, invisible, flashed to life beneath the tip of the dagger, barring it from stabbing into her and exploding with energy that propelled the dagger back, flinging it from Dyuh Mon’s hands.
That same explosion pushed Sifa’s soul down into the altar, down into the depths of a dark hell. Tormented wails assailed her ears, claws tore at her flesh, and she drowned in an ocean of blood.
In this moment, she became aware. In this moment, she knew every soul in the Empress’s embrace and saw the web binding them together—the altars, the spells, the sacrifices. In this moment, she glimpsed worlds beyond the Ohkrulon, beyond the Nayen empire, beyond this realm.
Far away, a dark shape turned to her and whispered, “Ask me a question and I will tell you truth.”
Before her, connected to that dark shape, part of the Empress’s embrace, part of that web joining the souls together, she found a seething mass of worms and maggots, of demons and devils, and recognized it as a node, like the ones in the collars but larger and hungrier.
“Ask me a question...” The dark shape drew closer, its eyes glittering and hard but its head moving from side to side as though searching, as though it couldn’t see Sifa as she could see it.
Sifa’s palm burned and she looked down. The triangular outline of the gemstone burned into her palm blazed with life, with the power of the storm.
Sifa drove her hands into that horrible mass. She ripped at it, squeezing with all her strength, trying to detach it, to stop it. She pictured lightning flowing through her into the node. Power streamed through her and the node collapsed and squished through her fingers, the worms and demons wailing and dropping off, revealing a light hidden inside, a sphere of purity.
“Ask me your question!” the dark shape shrieked. “I will tell you truth!”
The world shuddered and gaps appeared. Ghostly hands reached out to that sphere, touching it, caressing it, and it broke apart into the pure, innocent souls of babies and children and the hands guided them away.
“No!” The dark shape surged toward her, its pale skin becoming visible, its needle-like fangs dripping with venom.
Sifa squeezed all the nodes around her as hard as she could, in fear and desperation, afraid that thing would find her, afraid that thing would harm the babies again.
She gasped and her eyes flew open. She was back in her body, the webbing holding her down now gone, Dyuh Mon still chanting with the dagger raised high, preparing to try again, and Lunan at her feet.
The collars around the necks of all the people in the room exploded into insubstantial, ghostly black worms that squealed as they flew off in all directions.
SIFA ROLLED TO LEAP from the altar, but Lunan reached down and grabbed her shins.
A head, with its eyes on the ends of stalks and its hardened hair acting as legs, flew out from the shadows and its jaws clamped down on the back of Lunan’s leg. He stopped chanting and shrieked, tumbling forward onto the altar, twisting and batting at the creature now attached to him.
Dyuh Mon, his eyes wide with fear, could not stop the arc of the sacrificial blade.
Sifa slid out from beneath Lunan, slipping off the altar.
The dagger pierced Lunan’s shoulder, slicing through the bones of his shoulder blade and his ribs, the tip dipping into his heart. Lunan’s mouth flew open, impossibly wide, and he howled, his eyes turning black, his skin turning gray with black traces of his veins visible.
Dyuh Mon continued to chant, but he stepped back, pulling the blade back with both hands, twisting, yanking Lunan across the altar. Lunan stretched like a piece of taffy, elongating as he blubbered. The black stone moved around him, pulling him into it. The monstrous head dropped off with a hunk of Lunan’s flesh between its teeth and ran away.
The blade released Lunan and Dyuh Mon staggered back, leaving Lunan’s dessicated and deformed corpse partially merged with the black altar, his torso hanging over, his head bowed in death.
“Damn you!” With the sacrificial blade in his right hand, Dyuh Mon flung his left hand forward, shouting a trigger word. Sifa surged to her feet, raising her forearms before her face to protect herself, not sure what to expect from his spell.
“Watch out!” Ka-bes hurled herself toward Sifa, catching her, hugging her, interposing her body between Sifa and Dyuh Mon.
But nothing happened.
Dyuh Mon stared at his hand, looking at the front and back.
Sifa realized then that the silence spell was gone and the magic that had glittered around Dyuh Mon, swirling around him like layers of a cloak, had disappeared save for a faint glimmer on his
skin. She said, “The magic?”
Ja'ast leapt forward, chanting, moving his hands and stomping his feet. No magic collected between his hands, no magic shot forth, no rock fell on Dyuh Mon’s head. Ja’ast raised his hands and stared at them.
“What have you done?” Dyuh Mon asked, creeping around the altar, holding the dagger awkwardly before him.
Che-su pushed herself to her feet and staggered forward, wrapping her arms around Sifa, saying, “She’s sundered the realms.”
“Not possible.” Dyuh Mon shook his head, an evil gleam in his eye. “She didn’t sacrifice nearly enough power for that.”
“You don’t know what she’s capable of,” Che-su chuckled.
Dyuh Mon lunged at Ja'ast, swinging the sacrifical dagger.
Ja’ast dodged away and assumed a fighting stance with a grin on his lips. “Come on then.”
Che-su pulled at Sifa and Ka-bes, herding them away from Dyuh Mon and Ja’ast’s fight. She whispered, “Blast him.”
Sifa looked back at Che-su and the old woman nodded.
Ka-bes hissed, “I thought you said she’d sundered the realms. Were you lying?”
Sifa pictured Dyuh Mon surrounded by lightning, conceived a bolt lifting him up from the ground, and she focused all her fear and anger into that blast, all her love for Ka-bes and Che-su and her fear that Dyuh Mon and Gartan might take them from her.
“Gartan!” Dyuh Mon swung his blade once more at Ja'ast, but Ja'ast deflected his arm, re-directing Dyuh Mon’s momentum and tossing the man onto the floor. The blade clattered out of his grasp. Dyuh Mon stretched out to it, but Ja’ast stepped on his wrist and punched him in the face.
“Blast him now!” Che-su whispered.
Gartan appeared from shadows, and struck Ja'ast with the back of his hand, flinging the man backward like a broken toy into Ka-bes, Sifa, and Che-su. Blood sprayed from Ja’ast’s mouth and face and the impact knocked Ka-bes onto the stone floor.
Gartan scowled at them for a heartbeat—a heartbeat that Sifa’s heart skipped, so cold and dangerous were his eyes. But he turned to Dyuh Mon with spread hands, and said, “When are you going to learn to listen to me?”
Sifa pictured the bolt piercing both men, filling them with the energy of the storm. The bolt appeared, flying from the ceiling, through Gartan and Dyuh Mon, lifting them screaming into the air. Sifa held it, her eyes squeezed shut, her fists clenched, her teeth grinding together.
“Don’t let up,” Che-su yelled to Sifa. “Keep it going as long as you can. Let’s get out of here!”
Ka-bes staggered to her feet, wrapped her arms around Sifa, and carried her out through the door, through those dark halls with the horrific mosaics. Ja’ast followed, Che-su in his arms, his face swelling and blood dripping from his chin. Ka-bes carried Sifa out through the entrance and back out into the courtyard of columns beyond, Sifa still picturing the energy blasting into Gartan and Dyuh Mon, the lightning blazing in her mind, the cool air outside freezing against her skin.
Che-su screamed, “Close the door!”
“I don’t know how!” Ka-bes yelled back.
“I don’t have the strength,” Sifa said, collapsing, her energy spent, the power of her will gone. She pressed the palms of her hands against her temples, an ache knifing through her head. “I couldn’t hold it any longer.”
“If we don’t close this door, they’ll just be after us again in a few minutes,” Che-su said.
Running through the colonnade, Ja'ast chanted, magic swirled around him, and he screamed, throwing his arms out and back, and the inner columns flew toward the door, tearing free of their bases and capitals, the great stone faces crumbling, and the entire mountain collapsing before them but not on them.
“What are you doing?” Ka-bes screamed at him, still lugging Sifa’s limp body.
Ja'ast yelled back, “I’m closing the damned door is what I’m doing.”
“Shut up and run,” Che-su yelled, “before this whole thing falls on us!”
“Go!” Sifa wriggled out of Ka-bes’ grip. She stumbled for a few steps, her legs shaking, and then accepted Ka-bes’ help when she took Sifa’s arm and looped it over her shoulders.
Che-su staggered forward as clouds of dust and shattered stone billowed around them, covering them with a layer of black powder. Ja’ast jogged past Ka-bes and with one arm, grabbed Che-su around the waist, taking some of her weight and propelling her to greater speed.
They turned a corner, heading back toward the door where they’d entered. Wu Cheen knelt beneath a tree with Shiky’yath, still encased in webs, at his feet. He stared at them, blinked, and then disappeared into the shadows.
Sifa yelled, “Wu Cheen! Everything is good! It’s us. We’ve won!”
“Is this a trick?” His head appeared in a window. “You don’t look like we’ve won.”
Oasis
“I LIKE THAT GIRL,” Gartan said, groaning as he sat up, his charred skin crackling, healing. “What in the names of the Nine Hells happened?” He looked around, his brow furrowing. “Where did all the magic go?”
Dyuh Mon’s smoking skull moved, a tendril of smoke spiraling up from between his teeth.
“Hey.” Gartan poked Dyuh Mon’s rib cage. “I’m hungry. You hungry?”
Dyuh Mon’s charred skeleton quivered, struggling to move.
Gartan rose, stretching with his fists in his lower back, then he grabbed Dyuh Mon by his shoulder blades and lifted him up. One leg fell off.
Gartan dragged what was left of Dyuh Mon to the altar, dropping it on top of Lunan’s corpse. He yanked out a handful of flesh and took a bite, before opening Dyuh Mon’s jaws and shoving his teeth into Lunan’s body. Blood vessels appeared on Dyuh Mon’s bones, snaking across like rivers. A thin film of tissue formed over Dyuh Mon’s skull.
“Hurry up,” Gartan said, leaning against the altar. “You need to at least grow your throat back so you can answer my questions.”
The room rumbled and shook from side to side, the ceiling and floors creaking, dust spewing from the cracks.
Gartan walked to the door. A thick cloud filled the hallway. “That’s not good.”
Something clicked and clacked.
Gartan peered into the shadows. A strange creature waited there, an upside-down skull with eyes on long stalks and long hair protruding from the bottom acting as makeshift legs.
He blinked. “Yut-hosa?”
SIFA SAT CROSS-LEGGED in the sand outside her tent. The backs of her hands rested on her knees and her eyes were closed. She worked hard to ignore the tickle of a strand of hair that had fallen across her face and now lay with the tip brushing against her nose. Her stomach growled at the scent of freshly brewed tea and almond cakes. She licked her lips, imagining almond cakes with extra honey drizzled over them.
“You are not concentrating,” Ka-bes said, her voice stern and harsh, coming from directly before Sifa. “Don’t you dare talk back to me.”
“Oh, she’s doing fine,” Che-su said, the flap of the tent rustling.
“You have gone soft since I last knew you,” Ka-bes said.
“Empathy will do that,” Che-su responded. She sounded as though she were smiling but Sifa resisted the temptation to try to sneak a peek.
Feet pounded on the sand, the sound of someone running, panting for breath, and then Shiyk’yath said, “Three riders approaching.”
“Three?” Ka-bes said. Clothes swished and air swept over Sifa’s skin.
“Three?” Sifa said, her eyes flying open. She bounded to her feet.
Two yurts sat beside a fire in a small box canyon, sheltered from the winds, their horses strung together and tied to the wall, their wagon between the tents, loaded with supplies.
“No,” Ka-bes said, pointing to Sifa, and then pointing back to the patch of sand where she’d been meditating. “You are not done.”
Shiyk’yath rubbed at the metal casing Ja’ast had fashioned to fit over the remains of his left forearm. “Looks like Wu Cheen on one hor
se, but neither Ja’ast nor I could make out who the two other riders are.”
Ka-bes nodded, then said to Che-su, “If you would stay with Sifa and Shiyk’yath, and prepare to escape, Ja’ast and I should be able to buy you time.”
“Escape?” Sifa said, skipping toward the exit to the canyon. “It’s Wu Cheen. We should go greet him!”
Ka-bes jumped forward and caught Sifa’s arm. “He’s not supposed to be bringing us visitors, so we have to assume the empire caught him and has turned him against us.”
“We beat the snot out of two of the empire’s greatest heroes. We can handle whoever this is!” Sifa twisted and squirmed. She pulled her arm free and sprinted away, leaping over bushes, dodging between cacti, around the path between the rocks to the flat desert beyond.
Out on the sand, Ja’ast stood with a wicker hat on his head and a staff in his hand, his upper torso bare and gleaming in the sun, wearing blue and white baggy pants.
Wu Cheen sat on his horse talking to Ja’ast, a string of five new horses arrayed behind him, and behind them two more horses with a woman and a man astride them.
A breeze pressed against Sifa’s face, and then she lurched into the air, rising up, flying backward. Sifa yelled, “It’s Lonyo! It’s Lonyo with him.”
“What?”
Sifa twisted and landed hard, dropping to her knees on the sand before Ka-bes.
Ka-bes bellowed, “Don’t you ever run away from me like that again! Haven’t you learned anything?”
“It’s Lonyo with Wu Cheen,” Sifa said.
“Who?” Ka-bes asked.
“The lady who healed Che-su and Shiyk’yath, a friend of Wu Cheen’s,” Sifa said, pulling at Ka-bes’s arm. “She’s a good person.”
“We’ll stay right here,” Ka-bes said, turning toward the riders. Magic swirled around her, coalescing and strengthening.
Ja’ast swaggered toward them, his gait loose, using his staff as a walking stick, giving a discreet signal that the guests were no threat.
Sifa bounced up and down, clapping her hands. “See?”
“You stay right there,” Ka-bes whispered, keeping her magic at the ready, stepping forward and placing herself between Sifa and the approaching strangers.
