Ascending Shadows

by Everet Martins

  “No… I…” His resolved failed him as he dropped his arms, eyes softening.

  “Come to me.” She lowered her head and opened her arms.

  His prick bulged from his loincloth, pressing against her as she engulfed him in her arms. She dispelled her illusion, shifting into her true form. Her flesh was a rugged carapace, hard as stone and red as wine. The carapace faded at her neck into flawless ivory skin. Her hair wasn’t hair at all but thousands of tiny snakes, hissing and curling through the air. Her wings wrapped him up in a cocoon of flesh, stretching from her wrists to her back.

  “What are you doing to me? What are you!” he roared and writhed against her. His roar was swallowed in the hopelessness of the forest. The weight of all those sentinel trees pressed down on them.

  She grabbed his prick, wrapped a leg around his side and forced him inside of her, wriggling her wide hips as she forced him in.

  “No. Please. No!” he sobbed and thrashed, his bronze ornaments jingling. “Why are you doing this? Why?” His voice was a strange blend of fear and want.

  “I need you.” She parted his mane and breathed into his ear, her voice a lover’s whisper. She drove her hips into him, swallowing all of him. “How did you know?” she said between violent thrusts.

  He gave up. For a moment, he moaned with ecstasy, falling into step with her rhythmic thrusting. Then he screamed with fluttering lips and agonized breaths. Her sex was lined with razor sharp spines and she fed off his pain when she ejected them. He bled and tore in ragged strips, and would have gone flaccid from the pain had her secretions not kept him stiff as iron. His blood curled around her inner thighs, spiraled down her legs, and pattered onto the dead leaves. She placed her hand on his ass cheek, driving her claws into his soft flesh. She drove them deeper and deeper until the middle of her fingers were warm and within his flesh, blood trickling around her knuckles.

  “Do you love me?” she asked with a musical laugh, pulling back so she could see him. His eyes had rolled back into his skull, showing only the whites. She nuzzled her face under his quivering neck, veins throbbing with pulsing misery.

  “Why?” The Tigerian chieftain stared up at the darkening sky, mouth slack. His eyes started rolling back again, disconnecting from his body.

  “There are no answers to be found up there,” she whispered and licked his lips, leaving a gleaming trail of black saliva. She grunted with each thrust, tingling warmth filling her up from her sex to her abdomen. Her hips crashed against him with wet slaps as blood pooled and matted in his fur.

  “End me,” he croaked. Jerky spasms twisted through his form. “Make it stop, make it stop,” he repeated over and over. His broad tongue slipped out the side of his mouth, bleeding from the underside.

  “Come back. Do you not enjoy this? Am I not good enough for you?” She slipped her claws and fingers out from within his ass cheek and caressed his neck, using the Shadow’s strength to force his mind back to the present. “You will be here for this. You will feel this, all of this. You will endure. There is no one who will save you. You must tell me. How did you know?”

  His head slumped over his chest, the thick mane covering his face while a rattling breath peeled from his lips. The pool of scarlet between their legs was ever widening, reflecting the garish glow of her phylactery crystal.

  “Ah, ah,” she moaned between bloody slaps. “How did you know?” she asked again, inserting her forked reptile’s tongue into his ear. “Tell me or I will give you more pain,” she whispered. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” she shrieked, her voice crescendoing and tearing above the trees, traveling for miles. A rivulet of blood trickled from one of his pointed ears.

  A few snakes on her head lashed out, tearing bits of flesh from his cheeks. She smiled, her chest filling with warmth as her loins swelled with fire and ecstasy. This was new, this was interesting, this was fun. How many different ways were there to kill a Tigerian? she wondered.

  She would need practice for when she reached Zoria, as there would be many to slay in the Tower. They took her everything. They killed her mother, banished her from her own home, slew her brother and his children. Death Spawn they called them, a name wracked with scorn. What had she done to deserve such a cruel fate? There was no fairness to it. Her loved ones were only trying to survive.

  They would all pay with blood. She would dash apart the heads of their children, ruin the wombs of their women, flay their men while their hearts still scrambled for life. Their names were forever inscribed upon her heart: Nyset Camfield, Juzo Pulling, Grimbald Landon, Senka Graves, and Isa Dodred. She had special plans for the ones who had pillaged her home. Home was a place that no longer was, her realm irrevocably changed. The heretical god worshiper Walter Glade was dead, but his memory would live on. She would cleanse him from time and strip them of his legacy. She would never forget what he did to her mother.

  The chieftain’s head snapped up, staring into her eyes with his almond pupils. “You don’t know our ways, don’t know. Plain to see!” he cried.

  She screamed back as she hammered with her bloody hips. “It’s my fault they’re all dead! My fault! And there’s nothing I can do.” It was a strange mix of pain and pleasure. An explosion of heat waved from her sex, up to her neck and down to her toes. “I could have done something. Could have helped them,” she sobbed, pressing her face into the limp body hanging from her arms. Anything would have been better than hiding in the shadows, watching with her coward’s eyes as they destroyed her family. A shudder went through her, warmth dissipating into the icy futility of it all. “But I must be patient,” she reminded herself. She gazed up at the beads of light forming in the unbounded world above.

  “Patience is the key to survival,” a familiar voice said from behind her.

  “I suppose you should know.” She cleared her throat, letting the Tigerian’s body slip from her arms with a thud. She turned to face him. A disc of blood shone from her navel to her thighs. “You have found the proper materials… Master Grozul?” She said his name with a mock smile and crossed her arms.

  He coughed into a threadbare sleeve, shuffling from between a pair of ferns shrouding his form. “A fine mess you’ve made of that one. I do hope you plan to clean it up. I’ve had enough of dealing with your messes.”

  “My dear Phoenix House Master, you will do what I ask of you. Do not forget the oath you swore to my mother. It still binds you, does it not?”

  Grozul, former House Master of the Phoenix, pushed cracked spectacles up his long sweaty nose, one lens missing from the frame. “I have the materials. We should get on with it… while the blood is still warm.” His beard, once white, now black with the debris of the forest, flowed down to his waist in choppy pieces. “Why do I do this?” he muttered to himself.

  “Because you wanted power, and gifts of Shadow are not freely given.”

  He grunted and grumbled incoherent words from under his beard. He made for her cave, his back kyphotic and his weight bowing over his gnarled staff. The glow of her phylactery in front of him cloaked his form in shadow. She sauntered up beside him and sighed, knowing this would not be enjoyable. “What must I do?”

  He slowly turned to face her, appraising her with his rheumy eyes. He sniffed and scanned her up and down, making her feel small and weak for a second. “Did you not read the text I gave you?” he said in disbelief. “Just like my students, never listen, never heed their elders—”

  Her hand was a blur, latching around his neck and lifting him off his feet. His staff slipped from his fingers, worn moccasins kicking at nothing, weak fingers clawing at her grip. He tried to choke out a word, but she squeezed harder but with care so that she didn’t drive her talons through his neck. She would need him. The color of his cheeks changed in waving gradients. She tilted her head at him, watching the color travel up to his forehead.

  “You—” Grozul got out.

  “I?” she crooned. “I what?”

  “N-need.” His eyes bulged from his withered s
ockets.

  She dropped him. He writhed on the ground, gasping for air, pawing and scratching at the earth.

  “You’re right. I do need you. In fact, I want to like you. But you must remember your place.” She squatted down and pursed her lips, watching him recover. “Have you remembered it?”

  He nodded frantically, his eyes whirling around at the treetops before finally finding hers. The truth was, without him, she had nothing and no one. She couldn’t and wouldn’t kill him. She was tired, so terribly tired of being alone. What she feared more than being alone was not being at all. “Let’s be on with it then.” She scooped him up under the arms, dragging him to his feet.

  She sat on her knees before the phylactery crystal, pulsing in brightness with the cadence of a heartbeat. She closed her eyes and light bloomed in her vision in reds, and pinks, and oranges.

  Grozul stood behind her for a few minutes, lungs heaving as he got his breath under control. A bird screeched in the distance. A cool wind coursed over the treetops, slipped down and into her cave bringing in the earthen scents of the forest. His heart thudded in her ears as if it were her own. He swiveled past her, heard the soft hiss of his leather pouch opening. He sprinkled a mix of bones, feathers, and ash in a protective circle around the crystal. “We must hurry, before the blood dries.”

  “Do it.” She gritted her teeth.

  He placed a gentle, fatherly hand on her shoulder and steadied his breath before breathing guttural sounds that were not words to her ears.

  She felt her blood rush against her temples, hammering loud as a drum.

  His whispers became words; words became hoarse shouts.

  She opened her eyes, the breath catching in her throat. She was hanging from a tree, suspended by her arms drawn up overhead. Her wings had been torn free, the leathery flesh crumpled up on the ground far below. The tree had been stripped of its bark, its flesh a ghastly white. It had no leaves and its roots burrowed into the side of a barren cliffside. The sky was empty.

  A young, nude woman stood below her, in front of her ruined wings. Her hair was the color of gold and floated on the air as if she were underwater. From her back emerged two blades of light, one blue and the other the color of fire. The blades twisted together, flashing with blinding light. The light faded, and the woman grimaced with teeth stained with dark blood. “Die,” she hissed, the word endlessly drawing out.

  A bead of blood slipped from the Shadow princess’ toe, warbled and spun as it descended towards the world below. It struck the woman’s face and rang out with a reverberating crash of gongs. The bead spread out over her porcelain skin as if within that droplet contained a bucket’s worth. The woman’s eyes went wide, and she uproariously laughed and laughed. The image vanished.

  Then Walter Glade stood before her mother in the Shadow Realm. He was nude with flesh dangling from his body like torn patches of fabric. The world around them was painted in the blood of the fallen. The moon shone with a pink glow. Walter’s mouth stretched open, his jaw tearing loose from his skull, strings of flesh snapping apart. A gout of fire white as the sun emerged from his mouth and bathed his mother in its insatiable fury. She slowly opened her eyes and saw her mother was reduced to a pile of ashes. The wind howled and hurled her remains into the air, spiraling up and into the void.

  She gasped as a blade of ice cut through her gut, her eyes snapping open, visions banished. The leaves of the foliage engulfing them twitched with an unfelt breeze. She peered down at her stomach and saw it was Grozul’s blade, a ceremonial kris buried up to the hilt. She gazed up into his eyes glowing with hints of violet. He was drumming incantations, but the words were mud. She felt her mouth being pried apart by something within, something clawing to get out. She had a distant thought that this was intended, that she should let it be.

  Grozul’s voice roared like an ancient demon, far more ancient than her lineage. What was he? she thought distantly. He was no ordinary servant of the Shadow. A great warmth left her lips and was replaced by an arctic wave. She shuddered at the cold rolling down her neck and into her sex. An arc of glowing tar slithered through the air, hovering and staring back at her. She felt then that she was looking into a mirror. The dark smudge took on her form, had her face, had her hate. Its eyes, her eyes, were hollow pits where not even the light of Grozul’s eyes could illuminate.

  Grozul screamed, arms slashing the air as if warding off a blow. The black figure was sucked into the glowing phylactery, and the light of it winked out a second after. Pure darkness fell upon her grove, the sheer absence of light. A heavy silence choked the air. The dead leaves didn’t crackle; the trees did not groan as they swayed. Grozul collapsed against the cave’s opening, a slumped over creature of rags and beard. “It is complete,” he said, his voice echoing as if in a vacuous dome.

  “What?” She heard his words, but understanding them took seconds longer than it should have. “Truly?” she asked, searching for the crystal. She couldn’t see it, but she felt it. She could feel herself, feel her soul trapped within its fragile walls. She had to protect it, she realized with a twisting pang in her chest.

  “I too am surprised it worked,” he said, rising up onto his hands and knees. “If you are killed in combat, your body will re-materialize near your phylactery. You cannot be destroyed if it remains unharmed. Wherever you place it…” he let out a long exhale, “tell no one.” The bottom of his beard grabbed a twig and a few bits of debris.

  “Yes, I see,” the Shadow princess said. “I thank you for your assistance.”

  “I serve the Shadow.” He bowed.

  “Yes. But you cannot be trusted.” Her eyes sparked to life with the glow of violet fire, burning like smith’s furnaces.

  “What?” he protested, fumbling over onto his backside. “Have I not proven my loyalty by this very ritual? What more do you demand of me?”

  “Your death.” She slinked over to him, her mouth gaping open.

  “No, no, no! Please! Why? You can’t!”

  “I can.”

  “I can’t die,” Grozul said, his voice flat. Not even a nervous snicker was on his lips.

  She kneeled down and wrapped him in her deadly embrace, felt him shiver against her dead breast. She breathed on his cheek. The spot became shades of yellow, then green, and black. The colors spread in ripples up and down his face, making their way over the whole of his body. In seconds, he was a blackened corpse, his muscles withered, flesh deeply wrinkled, and pulled tight around his bones like a piece of rotting fruit.

  The sounds of the forest returned like someone had removed cotton from her ears. She snatched up a pointed rock and started digging. She would have to bury it deep and in a place none would ever find it.

  TWO

  Senka Graves

  “By combining air heated by the Dragon and air at room temperature, I was able to devise how Walter produced lightning laced with fire.” -Walter Glade’s Discoveries by Nyet Camfield

  The cow glanced back at Senka Graves with its big brown eyes, blinking at her with what seemed like curiosity.

  Senka squinted at her. “Go on. You will serve us well. We will respect your gift. This day comes for all of us, you must know that.” She tugged on her leather apron, checking that the straps were tight around her bony waist. She slapped the cow on the flank and directed her through the gate and into the four-walled room. Its bell softly rang as it sauntered in. Senka closed the gate behind them, flinching as the latch snapped down like a guillotine.

  The echo of the cow’s hooves was swallowed in the dank room. The familiar iron tang of old blood filled her nostrils. The cow turned to face her and tossed its head with a snort. “Just going to give you a nice massage now.” Its tail lashed at the dark flies that followed them in, merrily hissing as it swayed. Senka blew out her cheeks as she walked up beside it.

  The cow turned its head to look at her, regarding her flatly. It had no idea how much its life was about to change. She wondered how many people looked at her in much
the same way. She sniffed and drew a hand across her sweaty brow, pushing up angles of dark hair to stand from her forehead. She inched towards the cow’s neck, who inched away from her, bumping up against the back wall of the small room, just enough space for the two of them to move. She pressed against its side with her shoulder, slipped its bell from its neck with a hollow ding, and placed the frayed rope on a hook. She rubbed its shoulder and scratched at its coarse hair.

  “You always trusted me. How do you know?” she asked it.

  It blinked back at her, then pawed at the gray stone. It lowered its head with sullen resignation. Its whole body seemed to shrink, its once proud form bowing before its reaper.

  The walls were all dull gray blocks, cheap and functional, sloppily mortared together by a man more concerned about containing messes than aesthetics. The inner walls were stained with shades of brown, the relics of the thousands of its kind who had come before it. Channels were cut into the stone floor, flowing around the perimeter and connecting to a central channel that would flow into a bucket.

  The dawn light filtering in through the entrance behind her gave her a long shadow. Senka reached behind her back, fingers delicately feeling at the ornate Dragon heads forged in her dagger’s hilt. Her father’s work. She hesitated for a second, then gripped it tight, felt her palm pressing into the cool metallic scales engraved along the grip. The cow looked at her and twitched an ear, then sniffed at the ground. She drew the dagger with a cold ring, holding it flat against her back. She knew the blade shone with the crisp gleam of hundreds of oilings.

  The cow snorted. Senka scratched its ear with one hand, the other creeping up its other side, blade held in an overhand grip. She paused and stared at her quivering hand, the forearm flexed with tension, the tip of her blade warbling. Was this what her life had been reduced to? She was once a respected member of the Scorpions, one of the most heralded and feared sect of murderers in all the realms. Except they didn’t call it murder nor a crime. It was just work then. She was their last and only survivor. And here she was, paying homage to their legacy by butchering cattle to fill the overstuffed bellies of whiteskins.