by C. L. Roman
As the contraction passed, she looked around the cave. The light from a pair of torches revealed soot blackened, rough-hewn walls spattered generously with a brownish stain the color of dried blood. She shuddered with the force of the next contraction but focused her attention on her surroundings again when it passed.
Water trickled in vertical streams along one side wall from an unknown source, dampening the air before collecting in a dirty pool in the back. The floor was hard scrabble and dirt, with a scattering of boulders and smaller stones. Aside from the stone ledge on which Sena lay, there was no place to sit, or lay comfortably and the huge creature before her did not look likely to move the body whose hand he continued to hold.
“Molek will destroy you for this. You must take me back to the village.”
He faced her slowly and without expression. “You believe Molek will come for you?”
Mara wheezed with pain as another contraction hit. “He will,” she moaned. “And if I am not there, the village will pay.”
The grin he turned on her was savage. “Then we had best let him know for certain where you are.”
A shower of sparks covered the empty space he left behind and she sank back against a boulder, panting with fear, pain and relief. At least he would not kill her before Molek arrived. She smiled grimly. And he would find it very difficult to do so afterwards.
Gant stood on a hill which overlooked the secluded valley with its reed beds and hidden caves. To his left he could hear the wet tumult of the waterfall but he paid it no attention. Instead he raised his voice to the skies.
“Molek,” he shouted, and his voice echoed back where no echo should have existed. “Molek,” he repeated, his call reverberating in the air like a living thing. “Molek,” he cried a third time and thrust his sword into the air. Wisps of luminosity shot from every reflective surface around him – the falls, the pools and the moon itself – into the blade, raced along its edges to the tip where it gathered in a tight ball of incandescence. There it hesitated – pulsing, waiting, gathering strength. In a rush the message expanded up and outward, forming a canopy of light and brightening the dim glow of early morning into full daylight before fragmenting again, the shards of light flying back whence they had come.
Arms folded, legs planted firmly on Earth, Gant waited. A breeze teased the grass and tree branches. The sun hoisted itself another notch higher into a pale blue sky. Birds wheeled above him, calling occasionally to their mates. The brush rustled intermittently with the doings of some small creature. All intent on its own business, the world ignored him.
The moments crawled by. Realizing that his quarry was not ready to attempt a frontal assault, Gant sighed. He had hoped…still, the child was coming. Molek might care nothing for the woman, but he would come for the babe. When he did negotiations would begin. In the meantime it would not do to leave the woman alone too long.
Gant turned and shifted, arriving back inside the cave in the same way that he had left it, but to a markedly different scene. The woman was screaming almost constantly now, her wails slicing through the air with the piercing tones of desperation. When she saw him, she held out her hands beseechingly.
“Please, there is something wrong.” Mara had managed to wriggle free of her rich gown, its folds now soaked and reeking of blood and amniotic fluid. The shorter under tunic she had been wearing was bunched up under her breasts, leaving her belly and legs exposed. She didn’t bother trying to cover herself when he arrived.
The angel shook his head, looking at her without pity. “Childbirth is not accomplished without pain. Surely you knew this.”
“No, no, this is not my first child, that is how I know,” she gasped as pain after pain wracked her body. “Something is not right – the babe,” her back arched and her voice rose in a shriek. Gant watched in horror as her distended belly rippled as if clawed from within, clearly showing the tracks of talons scraping across, leaving long, thin bruises in the outer flesh.
He backed away from the woman, suddenly confused and uncertain. Again she screamed and a tiny set of needle sharp claws ripped through the flesh of her abdomen, leaving five bloody trails behind before disappearing back inside. The ribbons of oozing, violated flesh trembled with her breathing and Mara kicked out weakly with her feet, as if to run from the thing inside her.
“Please,” she begged, “make it stop. Kill it before…” she screamed again as a pair of small, bloody fists thrust up through the wreckage of her stomach. The infant hands shoved aside the folds of flesh to allow the head and shoulders to emerge. A blood soaked baby sat up in the wreckage of its mother’s body and grinned at him.
Mara continued to scream, staring in terror at her child. The baby paid no attention to her mother, but continued to stare at Gant with a wide smile. He could not move, could not look away.
The baby was obviously a girl, though he couldn’t have said how he knew. She had huge green eyes thickly rimmed with dark lashes. Despite her newborn status, her head was crowned with an abundance of curls, dark and matted now with the blood of her birthing. She was small and finely boned, but healthy and beautiful with smooth skin and delicate features. Her situation and extraordinary beauty aside, she looked much like the other babies Gant had seen in the village, until she smiled, revealing a full set of white, needle sharp teeth.
Gant shivered in horrified fascination as the baby, her gaze never straying from his face, reached back inside her mother’s rapidly weakening body, deep, deeper still as the woman writhed in agony. A look of intense concentration crossed the infant features as she groped about within the shattered torso. Gant could hear bones snapping, cartilage popping as the tiny hand rooted about, searching as the mother shrieked and struggled in vain to get away. The woman’s heels drummed uselessly against the sand as she clutched at the child, desperate to pull the infant from her.
The babe pushed the grasping hands away absently in an obscenely adult gesture, as if vaguely irritated, rather than threatened. Suddenly the rooting stopped and the beautiful green eyes lit with satisfaction. There was a quick jerk of the tiny arm and Mara’s struggles abruptly ceased – her eyes going still and wide in death.
The baby turned to Gant and raised one eyebrow inquiringly at him. She giggled and offered him the still pulsing heart saying, “Isn’t this what you wanted?” Gant shook his head and backed further away, tripping on the uneven floor and fetching up hard against the wall. The infant bounced and gurgled in delight. “Isn’t he funny Papa?”
Molek stepped casually out of the shadows, sinking down on one knee next to the dead woman and her living child. “He is mildly amusing,” he allowed, stroking his daughter’s matted curls. “But that isn’t the heart he wants, I think.” He lifted the tiny form free of her mother’s carcass as he spoke and, using a rag torn from the rich gown, began to clean off the worst of the gore that covered the infant.
She looked back at Gant, still holding out the heart, now still, with one hand. He shook his head again. Her brow creased in a puzzled frown, “No?” She shrugged and, raising the heart to her mouth, began to eat noisily. Her father sighed and patiently took her meal from her, tossing it to the ground with a moue of distaste.
“Here is your first lesson my love; we do not eat dead things.”
“But I’m hungry,” she whined.
He stroked her hair again, narrowly avoiding the snap of her tiny teeth at his fingertips. He smiled fondly into her eyes, “And you shall eat. I have a lovely little feast waiting for you.” The demon lips quirked upward as he looked, one eyebrow cocked playfully, at Gant. “It’s certainly one of Fomor’s favorites, though not, I imagine, in quite the same way.”
Still speaking he turned away and started to walk towards the cave entrance.
“No!” Gant’s shout stopped him. The infant chortled with glee as he whipped around, shifting to place his body between her and Gant’s drawn sword. He half crouched with his sword up, ready to block the angel’s blow. “You have the child,�
�� Gant panted, “give me back Sena’s heart.”
When no attack appeared to be forthcoming, Molek relaxed and stood, leaning casually on his sword. He looked momentarily puzzled, then chuckled, “Sena? Oh, your ummm, friend? You think I have her heart?”
Gant shook his head, holding his blade carefully between threat and prevention. “No, but Benat is your creature, yes? You will know what he has done and where he is. Make him return what he has stolen.”
Something slid behind the demon’s eyes before he lowered his lids, hiding his expression. He recovered swiftly however, sheathing his sword and appearing to consider Gant’s request before saying, with mock regret, “No, I’m afraid I won’t be doing that. I find myself simply crushed by the press of my current obligations. You’ll have to take care of that little errand yourself.” With that he turned once more as if to go, ignoring Gant’s howl of anguish.
Gant rushed the creature, sword high, intent on separating the monster’s head from his body. Slipping sideways, Molek evaded Gant’s blade with ease. Pulled off balance by his own momentum, Gant felt the world slow to a crawl. He could see Molek’s fist coming toward him, almost casual in its approach, but had no power to elude the impact. With no more than a flick of his fist, the demon sent the angel sprawling, unconscious, to the cave floor, his sword clattering to the stones beside him.
Thoughtfully the fallen angel picked up the blade and examined it. “Hmm, shall we take this with us, Astarte?”
The baby giggled and reached for the shining weapon. “Pretty,” she gurgled.
He smiled tiredly, and tucked the sword away, carefully keeping the blade well out of her reach. Rubbing a hand against his chest he grimaced slightly as he bounced his daughter lightly on his hip.
“Yes, I think it is too. And what with celestial steel so hard to come by, well, best to be thrifty now isn’t it? Come along love. Time we were moving on.”
A few moments later Gant groaned himself into consciousness and struggled to his knees. Sobs choked him as he crawled to Sena’s ledge. He looked down into her face and stroked her cheek. He paid no attention when he heard a step behind him, ignoring even the gentle hand that touched his shoulder in commiseration.
“Gant,” Fomor’s voice was soft with his own grief.
“I’ve failed her Fomor. There is nothing left to bargain with.”
“You will save her.” Danae stepped out of the flickering shadows and knelt down beside the grief-stricken warrior. “But this wasn’t the way.” She gestured to the broken form of Mara, lying in the sand between them and the cave entrance. His eyes followed her gesture but he looked away quickly.
“I can’t – I’m so sorry,” he whispered brokenly.
Danae shook her head, “Mara’s death wasn’t your fault. She chose her own fate when she knowingly followed Molek.”
Gant stared at her, his face slack with surprised horror. “She couldn’t have known what would happen,” he protested.
“Perhaps not,” Danae agreed sadly, “but she chose it nonetheless. And the thing she unleashed on the world…” the seer shook her head and closed her eyes against the memory of her vision, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Fomor tried to comfort them, saying, “How much harm can an infant do?”
Gant looked up at his friend, “You did not see her Fomor. She came out of the womb talking and murdering.” He stopped a moment, remembering. “She knew what I wanted, or at least she had a twisted sort of understanding of my desire.”
“Ahh, an empath,” Danae said, the word leaping into her mind as she spoke, “I wondered what it meant. In my vision I saw a long line of people. Some were wealthy, others ragged, but all grey with desperation, even as they worshipped her.” Danae’s voice slowed and her eyes went wide and unfocused, as if she were looking into a distant place that only she could see.
“I saw her giving gifts. The people had these rapturous expressions on their faces, as if she had presented them with the one thing they desired above all else. But as each supplicant walked away, I could see it was a snake they held, coiled and ready to strike.”
The trio fell silent, each lost in their own dark thoughts until a sound at the cave entrance wrenched them to attention. Danae found herself unceremoniously thrust behind her husband, rubbing his finger marks from her arms. Gant reached for his sword and came up empty, settling for his dagger instead. Fomor glanced at him, bow strung, arrow nocked.
“We’ll have to fix that somehow,” he said, nodding to Gant’s empty scabbard.
Gant shot him a lopsided grin, “You mean you don’t carry an extra in your pocket?”
“I hope he has a bit of food in his pocket; I’m starved.” Volot said as he stepped into the cavern lightly, followed by Jotun.
The three already inside the cave relaxed.
“How did you find this place?” Fomor asked.
Jotun shrugged, “In the same way that you did, I’m sure,” he said. “Gant’s little light show wasn’t exactly subtle.”
The younger angel gave a weak grin and shrugged. “It wasn’t meant to be. I was, after all, trying to summon a demon.”
“Yes, well, let’s hope people don’t make a practice of it,” Danae shuddered at the thought. She moved forward quickly, checking first Gant’s head wound, then Jotun’s arm and lastly, Volot’s numerous cuts and bruises, with brisk efficiency. “You’ll all do, I suppose.” She turned to her husband and he smiled in bemusement as she gave her “report.”
“Jotun’s arm has stopped bleeding and should mend cleanly, but he’ll need to rest for a few days. Volot and Gant are both nearly healed already, though I have to say,” she turned and poked an accusatory finger at Gant, “you are lucky that Molek didn’t gut you when he had the chance. What were you thinking going after him like that?” She moved closer and prodded him in the chest. “You knew what he was capable of. You saw what he did to three angels, all older and stronger than you. What were you thinking?” she demanded, all but shouting at him by the time she finished speaking.
Gant’s face became grayer with each word until Fomor finally laid a cautionary hand on his wife’s arm. Volot and Jotun just stared at the usually calm, mild mannered woman they thought they knew.
“I – I didn’t… I wasn’t…” Gant bent his head and drew in several shuddering breaths. “I couldn’t let him walk away. I couldn’t let him leave her like that.”
Danae’s face crumpled and tears stood in her eyes. She made a move to comfort him, but he was already turning away, kneeling at Sena’s side again.
Tears clouded his voice as he pleaded, “I can’t leave her like this Fomor. I can’t, but I have to find the thing that did this to her. What do I do?”
“You remember that you are not alone.” The new voice, familiar as his own, came from the cave entrance and everyone turned as Phaella and Adahna entered with Shahara. Phaella crossed to her brother and, taking his hands in hers, pulled him to his feet.
“You remember,” Adahna crossed to the stone ledge that held her friend, “that we are not powerless.”
A breath of wind moved busily at her feet, brushing the litter of sand and rocks into the corners to reveal the cave’s rough floor. Bending down she touched the stone near Sena’s head. The wall and floor began to glow and soften. In moments she had separated the shelf as one separates a ball of dough for kneading. She slid the bier through the softened stone of the floor, creating ripples like a swan swimming across the surface of a lake. Adahna waited until the floor had settled into a glass like smoothness and took her hands away. The glow faded and the bier stood in the center of the chamber as if it had grown there of its own accord.
“You remember,” Jotun’s deeper tones rumbled in the still air of the cavern, “that we are of the light against which darkness cannot prevail.”
He moved to one side of Sena and lifted his hands to the ceiling. The unit took up stations surrounding the bier and followed as he flexed his fingers and the rock began to glow. The lig
ht spread in a ring from their outstretched fingertips, racing into the center and outwards down the walls to the floor until the pockmarked, lumpy texture flattened into a smooth globe of glowing stone. When the angels lowered their hands the light within the stone remained.
“You remember,” Fomor said, “that we are of the Host of Sabaoth and as such, cannot be defeated.”
The captain closed his eyes and tilted his head back. From his parted lips came a sound at once pure and powerful. As the others joined it was as if the Earth itself were singing.
Danae could hear the wind, though the air was still, and the sound of waves dancing along a sun spangled coast, reeds touching and parting, animals calling to one another at close of day and the cries of seabirds at dawn. Somewhere above all the rest was a ringing, wordless anthem, and she wondered if perhaps the stars themselves weren’t providing the harmony. The air turned heavy, and she felt her own heartbeat, an undeniable rhythm forcing her to sway in time.
Gant stepped to the head of the circle and gazed down at Sena. Tears traced silver across his cheeks, but there was a look of peace upon his face. He sang, lifting his hands, fingers outstretched and trembling with the effort of control. He fell silent with head bowed and eyes closed as the sand swirled in from the edges of the room, up around the bier in a miniature storm, his brow furrowed tight with concentration and pain. Danae felt as if she should call out a warning but she could only add her own voice to the song that flooded around the cavern like light.
Looking around she realized that it was light. Ribbons of fire danced from each mouth in the circle, circling and intertwining, weaving their way in and out of the spiraling sand, heating it, melting it into a glowing coruscation, which Gant shaped with his hands as the potter shapes clay. The angel’s singing became thicker, a living thing writhing within the spaces between light and dark, connecting and separating the two in the same motion.
Flame danced around Gant’s fingertips and the skin blackened into ash and fell away, healing quickly, but not quickly enough. Danae struggled to move, to cry out, to do anything other than watch helplessly, but she was caught, pinned between flame and song. Blood dripped and sizzled on the stone floor as Gant shaped the glass around Sena, seamless, making from the millions of grains of sand a hingeless, transparent casket containing his beloved.
