by Brindi Quinn
Awyer does not stir. His breath is heavy and slow.
I shake him. “Awyer! Awake with you this instant!”
Awaken he does. Fully awaken he does not.
Arms are thrown around my back and I am very near pressed to a sleeping sphinx. With me, he rolls to his side. “Grim,” he speaks my name.
My face flushes. His tone is more vulnerable than it ought to be.
“A-Awyer! You are sleeping. You must . . . wake . . .”
His chest moves against mine as he draws breath after breath. His hold on me is snug.
“Awyer,” I say, more quietly now, for the feel of him is good.
“Beautiful,” his sleepy voice says.
“W-what? What is beautiful?” I stammer.
I am given naught in return. After allowing a moment of indulgence, I struggle to slip from his arms. “Get up now! Womanly creatures surround the barrel!” I tell him.
“It is funny when you are lively.”
Delightful. It amuses him when I am in a frenzy.
“Awyer–”
“Remember,” he breathes, “the phoenix?”
“The phoenix? What phoenix?”
He nuzzles his face into my neck. “We saw it together,” he groans. “It was on fire.”
“No, Awyer, that memory is not yours . . .”
In fact, it belongs to one of his ancestors.
He lands a sloppy kiss upon my collar. “A-Awyer, you cannot continue to do things like that!”
But it is good. His lips close and graze my neck. I would delight to stay like this. To listen to his sleepy, deluded mumblings. To feel his mouth upon my flesh.
We cannot. There is a horde of naked, tailed women closing in. Into his ear, I blow a small puff of air.
Half-asleep Awyer gives a start – “Wah?!” – and through the darkness blinks at me. “Grim?” When he realizes how he holds me, his attitude does not change much from his sleeping self. “Grim . . .” The corner of his mouth twitches with lechery.
Hot-necked, I push from him. “There are many naked women outside!”
He shoots to his elbows. “There are not.”
“There are! Look for yourself! Their tails protrude from the grass!”
It is enough to make him react. From his nest he draws up slowly. But alas, when the curious sphinx peeks his head from the end of the barrel, there is not a wiggling tail in sight.
“Grim.” His eyes reflect bright the moon. “You play with me.”
“I do not play! They were here, Awyer! And they looked hungry. You must wake the others!”
“You wake them.”
“That is not funny.”
After a small spat, Awyer deems it appropriate to obey the orders of his mistress. I cannot make my urgency transfer onto him. From his side of the barrel, he moves at his convenience toward the other resting sorcerers, but upon reaching the middle, where formerly lay Techton within a mess of blankets, the Azurian is nowhere to be found. Similarly, at the opposite end, where before lay a pair of quarrelsome cousins, now only Mael rests curled in her ball.
“Mael!” Awyer nudges her with his foot, suddenly fueled with urgency. “Wake!”
While she takes time to stir, Awyer creeps past her, toad-scythe outstretched like a sword. At last he believes me. But he is not well prepared for a fight.
“Your Amethyst would be far more dependable than that thing!” I tell him.
To which I am ignored.
With bated breath I watch as he lightly steps out the barrel’s other end and into the meadow. I make haste to follow. Beneath a milky moon, the tails have yet to reappear. There is, however, something else basked in night’s light.
Pedj and Techton stand in the wet grass a short ways out, blades risen to their thighs. When Awyer calls to them, they do not respond, and so he begins to run.
“What of Mael!?” I call.
“Stay with her!” he issues.
But I cannot do that! Given the choice between the two, I must stay with my pactor! Yet, I edge after him only slightly, afraid of the anger my defiance may bring. Again he calls to the other two men, but they do not hear. Their backs are turned, their heads tipped toward the starlit heavens. From afar I watch him race to them. From afar I watch him reach them. And it is from afar that I watch him drop the scythe and take up a pose identical to theirs.
“AWYER?!”
Whatever ailment has befallen Pedj and Techton, it has also fallen upon my pactor. The rescuer has become in need of rescue. In a lightning motion, I am zipping across the tops of the grass.
And then, when I am near enough, I see them.
The men are not alone. Before each, a tailed woman stands – all looking lascivious, all sporting not a lick of clothing. I was wrong. The nude women may be ravenous, but they do not wish to use the men for food. They wish to use them for . . . other things.
The woman in front of Pedj is alike the others I saw; her hair is fiery red. The one in front of Techton, however, differs in that her hair is not red. It is blue. Sapphire blue. There is red and there is blue and then there is Awyer’s temptress. The hair of the woman before him is the most impressive of all, for it is brilliant, shining purple.
“Awyer!”
My sphinx’s expression is blank. Like Pedj and Techton, he stares at the moon with a dreamy yet lugubrious expression. Hypnotism? Behind the women’s backs, their tails swish to and fro in unison.
Tailed women. Like the legend. Tailed women and antlered men and then comes gold.
Does it mean we are near to the Golden Lands?
Techton’s seductress turns her back and begins to strut across the field; and, eyes yet upon the moon, Techton follows. Not a moment later, Pedj copies a similar course. Let it be known that he has never before played the role of zombie so well.
“Do not go with her!” I fly between my pactor and his temptress. I will break whatever hold she has on him. I will meet his eyes and guide him away from the tailed woman’s enticement.
But . . . Awyer . . . His expression . . .
It is the same expression I have seen upon so many men as their eyes pass straight through me. A look of blindness. Yes, I have seen it many, many times before, but never has it hurt so much. Seeing that face upon him is biting, pinching, gnawing.
“Stop it. Stop looking that way!” He does not react, even when I take his shoulders. “My sphinx, come out of this trance!” Becoming desperate, I zip around the side of him and tug him here and there. His feet are my enemies. They are committed to following the tailed woman.
Across the field, he does begin to go.
I sprit in front of the woman. “You cannot have him,” I tell her. “He is mine!” My cries soar past her. Past Awyer. Past all of them. I am unseen. Unheard. Unreal.
But my enchants are real.
They come from him.
Focusing all of my strength, I will an enchanted Amethyst ball to form. They may not see me, but they will see my smoke. They will see it and they will know.
One blast of purple soars toward the woman leading my sphinx from me. Alas, Amethyst will not attack Amethyst, and, as is evident by her purple hair, this woman is marked by Amethyst in some way. The ball swivels around her and shoots off into the distance, cutting a path through the victimed grass.
If that will not work . . .
I take out my aggression on her sisters. One after another, both are hit squarely with compacted balls of smoke. Both are blasted to the ground. They do not shriek. They do not cry. Like the gloers, the tailed women are silent.
With their hypnotists down, Techton and Pedj halt, ever staring at the moon. I understand a little more of what has happened. The women have not cast independent magicks; they maintain hold over the boys, and when they fall, that hold weakens.
Awyer’s temptress understands the danger that is afoot. She quickens her pace, coaxing Awyer to move with her, faster, through the meadow.
“NO!” I shoot another blast, to no avail.
&
nbsp; Very well. If I cannot harm her with Amethyst, I will enchant something else to attack her. There must be a stick or a rock or . . . But there is nothing. There has been nothing for days. Nothing but giant stone barrels and swaying grass.
The grass is tipped silver in the moonlight. It taunts.
“My sphinx!” Again, I am at his front, pushing my strength into him, pressing him from danger. But the longer I go without making leeway, the deeper I become swallowed by another human emotion I should not feel. In fact, an array of emotions uncommon to my kind begin to pour from within. Despair. Depression. Forfeit. Hopelessness. I can do nothing with my Amethyst power.
That is not to say that Awyer will not be saved.
It is only to say that my Amethyst will not be his savior.
“Hooooo.” A soft cry, alike an owlbird’s, ripples through the air, soon followed by a blast of red. I duck out of the way in time for the Bloőd cloud to land upon the tailed woman of Amethyst.
Like her sisters, to the ground she falls.
“Mael!” I spin to see Awyer’s salvation sleepily trumping through the grass.
The girl yawns a large yawn. “What’s goin’ on?”
I cannot answer her, of course, but I make haste to bob upward and downward to show my gratitude over her aid.
While the tailed sisters flail upon the ground, Mael inspects her cousin. She waves her hand in front of his face. “Yoohoo? Pedj? Pedjram? PEDJY!”
She is answered no more than I.
By this time, the blue sister has made it to her feet. Though I remain invisible, Mael is fully in her sights. And her sights? They are of most penetrating hatred.
The blue temptress is visible for but a moment before she tucks beneath the grass. There is a light rustling and then –
“LOOK OUT!” A pointless, invisible scream echoes through the air. The woman has hopped up from the grass behind Mael, tail turned sharp like a dagger, and she is about to grab hold of the unsuspecting girl.
But though Mael stands dully, I am wrong about her being ‘unsuspecting’. Before I can even think to cast enchants, a blast of red emits from Mael’s direction, sending the blue woman to the ground. How the necromancer managed to ball her fists and form a spell with such reflex is remarkable. And it does what it is meant to.
Our strength made apparent, the three sisters slink backward, disappearing into the waves of silver.
A battle won, but not the war.
All around the grass, swaying tails rise. There are more than a dozen! I circle Mael to gain her attention.
“Mistress?” Her head swivels after my light. “Oh, more of them’s here?”
Aye, more! And we must break the spell upon the males, posthaste!
“My sphinx! Awyer! Please!” I break my prodding to send several balls of Amethyst into the meadow. “Awyer! Awake from this!”
Again, I am not the one to save him.
A hum – an unsettling, melancholy hum – enters the space. It drifts from the ground, to the moon, and all over the dancing grass. I have heard it before. It is the song Mael so often hums. Hips swinging and mouth singing, the necromancer paces in front of the moon-gawking men. Her hands are held behind her back. Her head bobs along with her tune.
“What are you doing? That will not wor–”
Techton is first to break.
It worked?! Mael’s ability is a wonder I do not have time to wonder on now.
“My lady?” Confused, Techton turns this way and that, attempting to discover the reason he finds himself in the middle of a field beside Awyer and Pedj, both of whom are standing eerily still while maintaining unconditionally devoted eye contact with the moon.
Mael offers no explanation as she continues to hum.
As for the wiggling tails remaining in the grass, I notice a few of them drifting closer to where we are, though they do so with stealth. I make it my job to circle the group whilst releasing Amethyst blast after Amethyst blast. A satisfying thud! follows each contact. Of course, my attempts do nothing to deter those of the women marked by Amethyst. Mael will have to take care of them when she is finished awakening the men.
When Pedj come out from hypnotism, he joins in Techton’s confusion. Neither remembers coming this way. Neither understands why Awyer’s naefaerie continues to release balls of purple enchants through the field around them. Awyer, last to Awaken from his daze, has at least some recollection of how he came to be bewitched by the moon.
“Naked women!”
The first words to leave his mouth do nothing to explain. Pedj and Techton, though riled by the proclamation, are not any further to clarity.
Mael offers little more. “They dizzled you,” she says simply, before shooting a half circle of Bloőd balls.
“What the . . .?” Techton exchanges a glance with Pedj. The unperceptive men do not know what lies in wait through the grass. They do not recognize the identity of the wiggling tails continually recouping and persistently approaching.
“They were able to cast a trance upon you, as they did to the others! They seek to take you for their grooms!” I am frenzied, recounting the events to my freed sphinx. “Be wary of the ones with purple hair! Amethyst will not harm its own!”
“But Grim, we have all of the Amethyst,” says Awyer.
“Yes, all of the Amethyst magicks. These beings are marked by the three colors in some other way.”
With the men awake, the grass women are roused. Several tails charge our small group at once. Meanwhile, a handful of the others stand from their hiding crouches, revealing the whole of their tailed nudity.
“HOT HECK!” squeals Pedj.
Techton, too, immediately ceases his spinning. Upon his mouth, a mutter escapes. “Wow.” And with nothing else than the woman’s form to pressure him, his head drifts back to the entrapping moon.
“HEY!” Pedj elbows him in the side before the trance may take its full effect. Sheepishly, Techton shakes his head like a wolf stepping from water.
Lest he fall into the same seduction, I fly to the front of my sphinx and lock eyes on his, daring them to explore the unrobed women. “Do not remove your eyes from mine,” I say, tone much sterner than I anticipate.
“Mm. Scary Grim is here,” says Awyer, eyes intensely upon mine.
Truth, I am scary.
“I will be more than scary if you think to indulge in their naked forms,” I warn, and my words are baleful, suddenly driven by an emotion that is close to jealously. Or mayhap it is full jealousy.
“Don’t go watchin’ their tails, boys,” says Mael, sounding wise. “Them’s will dizzle you.” She releases a barrage of Bloőd enchants that remind me to do the same. How quickly the air becomes stained with red and purple. It is a scene reminiscent of the attack on Eldrade.
But through the veil of smoke, tails continue forth. I make hotter my enchants. I press the limits of my veins.
“Awyer!” I speak when I cannot bear to press them further. “They are persistent! YOU are most powerful of anyone! You must show them your awesome power, that they might know your strength!”
I expect reluctance. Always there is reluctance when it comes to using his rightful power. Always . . .
Not necessarily. There were times. Attacking Pedj for my sake . . . Rescuing me from the witches . . . Flying at the Nerve to appease me . . .
On a few occasions, Awyer has given in.
This is one of those.
“This is what you want?” says Awyer. His face is yet across from mine.
It is not a matter of what I want. It is more so a matter of saving the mortals. I know that. But because he wishes to please me, my chest beats. “Yes,” I say.
In return, Awyer nods to me. “All right.” And then to Pedj, Mael, and Techton, he issues, “Take shelter in the rock,” speaking of the stone barrel.
“In there?” says Pedj, standing clear of warrior-mode Mael, while emitting a few meager blasts of his own. “Why in there?”
“So that you will not be hurt
. I will take care of this.”
“Are you sure?” says Techton. He is the most useless of the party, a caster who will not use enchants, and a man, easily slipping in and out of trance by the naked women.
“Take them, Mael,” says Awyer.
His manner is too serious for argument. “Off now, boys,” coos the necromancer.
I allow the Bloődites and Azurian a cover of Amethyst, repelling any tails that rush them, knocking down any nudity that makes its way over the grass, as the three of them scamper toward the barrel. Awyer stands yonder, preparing to cast his spell. His stance is strong and grounded, his fists balled tightly. He looks the part. He looks fearsome.
Did the sphinxes know, I wonder, that their deliverer would carry such presence? I could watch him create enchant for hours. I would be happy to do nothing more than stare at the clouds of purple forming over his hands. Alone in this place, I would force him to cast enchants for me and for me alone. I would bring out the darkest parts of him.
A naefaerie of uncommon descent is not a good naefaerie at all.
When we are cleared of the others, I shout to him, “Whenever you are ready!”
The field will roll with my ward’s – no, my pactor’s power. All will know of his might. The moon and stars will know of his fated future.
But though I have given signal, Awyer’s power does not show. Though his fists are formed, Awyer’s spell does not come.
His teeth and jaw are tight. The veins of his arms slither and writhe, as a leech left in the sun writhes. Short bursts of air exit through his nose. The spell he has charged is massive.
My temporary attacks fend away the tails, but there is much ground to cover between the barrel and us. “Release it!” I shout. “The heat will pass!”
He struggles, anguished, under the weight of a spell too large for his limited experience. “AAARGH!” he yells at the moon.
Abandoning my post, I go to him. Swiftly, I do. For the magicks beneath his skin have begun to boil. His forearms bubble where the blood runs hottest.
“Grim,” he huffs at me. “What – is – this?!”
“Calm, Awyer.” I take the back of his skull and massage the hair falling over his neck’s nape. “Concentrate and release it.”
