by David Finn
Demorn watched the woman’s face shift. Reptilian. Stunning. A red emerald hung from her neck.
Demorn stroked her face. ‘Why hide your race? You’re beautiful.’
Lady Josephine smiled but her voice was sad. ‘I’m a guest in somebody else’s movie, Demorn. I’m as much an exile as you.’
She stepped back, the green dress glistening. Demorn’s heart was pounding. The floor was lit with the burning blue stars. Demorn looked around her. She was surrounded by a cluster of were-beasts, creatures out of myth. Many reptiles and felines. There were humans amongst them but not many. Demorn smiled her scary smile. ‘Magnificent.’
10
* * *
The band had left the stage. Expectant silence filled the air. She could read suspicion and fear amongst most of the faces surrounding her. The blade Xalos was silent in her heart. Despite the change in appearances, these creatures were dressed for a party, not war. On the borderline of reality, deep in the dimensions of magic, the rules of Treaty were more important than ever.
Demorn started to say something when she heard the mind cry of the Huntress, a forbidden death cry she hadn’t heard since the days of the White Fort. Toxis was attacking wildly, her long legs striking with precision against the Sumerian Lucas and a couple of burly human bouncers, leaping her way from them across the room toward Demorn. The armband burnt viciously on Demorn’s arm.
‘Toxis!’ she yelled.
Lady Josephine turned, shouting instructions, but Toxis was upon her, the staff in her hand, smashing away a jacked up male model who tried to throw himself in the way, and a swift kick sent Josephine to the floor. The glistening blade ejected from the staff and followed Josephine’s trajectory.
‘No! Don’t kill her, Toxis! Let her live!’
Toxis looked at her with blood wild eyes. The staff tip was on Josephine’s throat.
Why? She betrayed you.
Demorn looked at the still figure of Josephine.
‘Did she? Did she really, Toxis? We’re so keen to fight and kill but I want to hear what she has to say.’
Toxis sneered. She withdrew the spear tip in a blur. In her hand was the red pendant that had been on Josephine’s neck.
More fool you. In the next life, Princess, after we are dead.
Toxis threw the pendant in the air, a shimmering oval of energy appearing off the stone as Toxis jumped through, catching the stone with a graceful ease as she disappeared. The golden armband faded from Demorn’s arm. Josephine got up slowly with a rueful smile.
‘She doesn’t waste time. That pendant was a family heirloom.’
Demorn said, ‘Probably not your family though. She’s a Hunter, she has her goals. I have mine.’
The crowd was edgy and Lucas glowered at her but she sensed this was all he would do. For all her aggression, Toxis hadn’t killed anybody. Lucas was a big boy and could handle a couple of glancing blows. Demorn flashed a peace sign. ‘I haven’t even drawn a weapon, kids. Let’s make love not war.’
She heard the news broadcaster laugh and say something witty to his string of girlfriends and boyfriends. The mood lightened. The band came back out on stage. The girl was dressed in a tight Spandex version of the American flag. She gave the crowd a quaint curtsey and started doing an old Elvis song.
Demorn signalled a hostess for another drink. ‘She’s really belting it out.’
Josephine came to stand beside Demorn. Her reptilian features had faded away.
Demorn asked, ‘Who is she? Who are they?’
‘They call themselves Misty and the Neon Stars. They had a big hit a couple of years back.’
Misty and the Neon Stars finished the song big and Demorn gave them a rousing round of applause. Misty segued into a sultry tune.
‘Anyway,’ Demorn said, ‘I’ve got places to be and this feels like a private gig. Is there a reason you invited me?’
The huge screen was showing another planet hanging in space. Demorn squinted. Mirrored versions of the planet filled the screen.
She said, ‘The camera crew is getting artistic.’
Misty had put on a cat mask and she looked sexy as hell as she worked her way through another classic number. She built big and knew her Elvis. The alcohol felt good, unusual and welcoming.
‘You’re looking at a Root World. Root Worlds have multiples. Versions of themselves that reflect outward and downward, perhaps all the way to infinity.’
Demorn whistled. ‘Infinity. That’s a trip.’
‘The virus is killing multiples.’
‘Like Asanti. Mirror Worlds?’
Josephine smiled. ‘Now you’re getting it. Nearly anybody who makes it in here is a Shadow.’
Demorn took the bait. She’d had tougher nights than watching Misty and the Neon Stars sing while someone waxed philosophical.
‘A Shadow?’
‘Yes. My Root World is dead. Dead and gone. We got off before it blew. We wander the broken shadow worlds. We survive. We cut deals against the oncoming night. We live as shadows. We don’t do much more than that sometimes.’
Demorn popped a mint, looking at this beautiful, motley collection of creatures. She had seen were-creatures in Firethorn but they mostly stayed in the deep wild forests. Or so she thought. Perhaps they trod the streets of Ceron City. Perhaps they had fought and died alongside her on the Prussian Front.
Asanti was being destroyed on the Imax. If she closed her eyes, she was back on the Spire, watching Asanti die all over again, holding her brother’s shaking body. It was upsetting. She normally pushed such thoughts away but it was hard here.
‘I can relate,’ Demorn said. ‘They call me the Princess of the Wandering Swords, after all.’
Lady Josephine brushed her neck with a light kiss. ‘That they do. There’s a party going on. Let’s talk later.’
Then Josephine was gone, leaving traces of her subtle, intoxicating perfume with Demorn.
The party had entered a looser, different phase. Josephine was the ultimate hostess, working over rough edges, letting the night come alive.
Misty and the Neon Stars had finished their set with a rendition of an old school, bizarrely moving Bob Dylan cover, just Misty on an acoustic guitar singing “Chimes of Freedom,” leaving barely a dry eye in the house. Demorn would have put money down that about five people in the room knew it.
Of all people, Lucas, the massive Sumerian bouncer, had come down to the stage for this number and Demorn had seen him singing along with a smile on his face. The action had slowed, and Demorn, a little drunk, couldn’t help but dig watching him groove. Lost in the moment, he’d shot her a grin and she hugged him warmly. A DJ had taken over, laying some smooth electronic beats. The models surrounded Demorn on the dance floor, lithe bodies grooving. Demorn waggled her ass a little, feeling like a kinda sexy old dinosaur running on memories. Eventually, it all became too much and Demorn left the dancing to the nymphs and the teens, finding the bar where she sat down on a stool, gulping down a tall glass of water.
Her eyes wandered over the huge room. She watched a skeletal witch-like girl glide on thin membrane-like wings across the room. She was covered in red sparkles and her eyes shone yellow. What strange and wonderful things lived! She felt a small hot hand on the back of her head. Turning, she saw it was Misty, wrapped up in her fur coat again.
‘You’re not dancing, babe!’
Demorn laughed. The loud grooves and the edge of alcohol gave her a feeling of confidence, probably not wholly earned.
‘They don’t need to see me dance! That’s for the kids like you!’
‘Ha! By the standards of pop music, I’m old, hon!’ Misty giggled, pulling the fur coat around her small body. ‘Positively ancient!’
Demorn smiled, sipping at a cola. ‘By the standards of my social life, I should be in bed.’
Misty inclined her head. ‘Did I see you making out with Lucas the Bouncer?’
Demorn guffawed, almost choking on her drink. ‘You did not see me making
out with Lucas the Bouncer!’
Misty said, ‘Oh come on, he’s so big and hunky and adorable.’
Demorn replied, ‘He sure is, hon.’ She finished her cola. ‘But I’m into a whole different scene.’
Misty gave her leg a fond pat and kissed her. ‘I know, baby. And that’s why I love ya. I better get my ass moving, there are producers here, and I have to circulate.’
They had left the party. Gone outdoors. Demorn couldn’t believe they were in the same Fort. It wasn’t some perfect sunny idyll; they stood by a lake shrouded in shadow. The water was inky black and it was cold. Lady Josephine held a half drunk glass of white wine in her hand. Watching her up close, Demorn felt they had known each other before. In Ceron the two of them had been ships in the night. Every mission that dragged Demorn further into the War, meant Demorn was seen less and less in the Baron’s Court, and the Court was Josephine’s arena. When Demorn visited Ceron, Josephine had seemed to vanish, becoming a peripheral figure at best, letting her underlings do her bidding.
Demorn wondered if this déjà vu was feedback from a Parallel experience. Regardless, there was some connection beyond the here and now.
Josephine said, ‘I know what they say about me.’
Demorn was watching the pond. There was barely a ripple. The barest breeze over it all. It felt like the dying of summer. ‘Enlighten me, Josie. What do they say?’
Josephine sounded frustrated. ‘That I jump around dimensions too much. The locals can’t support me, I’m too confusing. It’s one crisis after another. One more fire in the capital. I don’t stay still long enough.’
Demorn picked up a smooth stone and skimmed it across the surface for four bounces before it sank. She said, ‘That’s just people. Small minds, small goals. We live in a crazy world, and it’s not just about killing the dragon anymore. You know what they ask me when they find out I’m the Wandering Princess of the Swords?’
Josephine looked with a sad smile. ‘What?’
‘How does it end, Demorn? They want to see into the terrible future, they want to know the Apocalypse. They want to be chilled to the bone and afraid, gazing into the eyes of the dark gods.’
Demorn’s hand slightly trembled and she threw another stone but this time it sailed high into the air and almost reached the shore, shrouded in shadows.
Lady Josephine said, ‘Is that something you’ve seen? The end of everything?’
Demorn’s laugh was bitter. ‘It’s mentioned in their prophecies and the oh so dramatic comic books.’
‘So the Apocalypse happens? You’ve seen it?’
Demorn’s voice was quiet. ‘I don’t remember anything.’
‘How so?’
Demorn ran a thumb across the ruby heart underneath her thin red shirt. ‘I usually forget everything once I‘ve gone from Firethorn. It becomes a name, a distant dream, back in the Clubhouse in Babelzon. It’s a part of the blessing the goddess gave me. I only remember what we face when I come back.’
‘It sounds horrible. No blessing at all.’
Demorn gave her a cold look. ‘You don’t know, Lady Josephine. The blade of Xalos was built for battle. Peace is just an interlude.’
Josephine was standing in the inky water. ‘But I do know. That’s what makes it terrible.’
Demorn shrugged. ‘We are close to the edge this time. I can feel it. I’ve given seven years to the War. Firethorn has fallen, the Fort is burnt and zombies rove the grounds while my sisters are in the wind.’
Josephine said, ‘Why do you call it Firethorn?’
Demorn smiled her scary smile as the shadows parted. Two huge pyramids leered up out of the dense fog. ‘That’s what it was called when I was a kid. My brother wandered with me into the deep forest and we came to the White Fort, pursued by evil things. The Sisters of the Fort took us in. I kept coming back for years, before and after Asanti exploded.’
‘And your brother?’
Demorn’s laugh was harsh. ‘Hates it! He’s terrified of the beasts and, I think, the powerful ladies. But the Fort is where I return when I come back.’
‘You’ve come a long way from the Fort this time.’
Josephine was drifting slightly above the water. The pyramids looked both distant and close. Demorn felt confused watching Josie looking for weakness. It was a face she knew but did not know, a stranger who did not feel so strange. Demorn was well accustomed to piercing lies and illusions but when she focused her magic eyes all she saw in Josephine was a fractured series of visions, an elegant woman in a long green dress that walked both courts and battlefields, appearing both young and old.
Demorn said, ‘I’m not even in Firethorn anymore. This is somewhere else. We’ve travelled into deeper magic, Josie. I’m a long way from the Front.’
She held up her wrist. ‘My watch back to my brother only works sometimes now. I don’t even know the way out.’
‘There’s always a way out,’ Josephine said. ‘It just depends how much you can pay.’
Josephine raised her hands. A small white-grey quartz stone floated from her fingers, an energy spiral trailing out, encasing the stone. The pyramids reared closer. Demorn could see the markings upon them. Talk of ancient gods. Markings of the Void. Warnings hidden in prophecy. The forbidden name of the Plague God was coded into a tableau of pictures. A multi-eyed alien carving leered from the apex of the tallest pyramid. It was both thrilling and crazy. Josephine shouted a single indecipherable word and a stream of green and blue light thundered out from the tips of both structures into the tiny stone, only inches from Josephine’s fingers. Josephine barely shifted, but the wave of momentum forced Demorn back, almost knocking her over. She caught herself with one steel hand, watching the stone grew larger and larger as the power of the pyramids bore down. Blown up, the crystalline stone was riddled with fractures but magnificent, draining the power from the dread pyramids.
Slowly but surely, the light trickled away and mist shrouded the pyramids. Josephine turned back to her. Her face and skin were reptilian. She looked at Demorn through heavy-lidded eyes. The brilliant white glow of the crystal shuddering in Josephine’s hands didn’t disguise the heavy cracks running through it. Demorn watched carefully as Josephine drifted back from the lake.
‘What the hell is it?’
Josephine gripped Demorn’s hand tightly. Her skin changed again, her face was flushed. Exultation rolled through her eyes.
‘It’s the way back, the way out!’
The crystal trembled in Josephine’s grip. Up close, Demorn could see the cracks in the crystal, yawning abysses of knowledge and deceit. A negative space of nothingness surrounded by the blazing crystal. Raw energy leapt off the awesome power of the rock.
‘I don’t want to go back!’ Demorn cursed. ‘I’m here to reset everything, to change things back to the way they were!’
Josephine laugh was like a howl. ‘Do you really think you can fix this, Demorn? Do you think a sword-fighter can beat a universe that is breaking apart? Ultimate Fate is still up there, Demorn, he’s going to eat this dimension like everything else!’
The lake seemed to become a dark ocean. A storm lit up endless rolling waves. For a moment, Demorn wasn’t sure where she was. She could hear the creaking and groaning of the skeleton ship. It faded. The lake was tranquil.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s too big. But I can save something from the wreckage. Something that could help us rebuild Asanti.’
Josephine was droll. ‘Precious Asanti, burning in the sky. Are there many of you left now, traveller? How many exiles still wander the shadow worlds?’
Demorn’s hand turned to steel and caught Josephine’s throat. ‘There’s enough to make it count. Don’t be rude and make me snap your precious neck, Milady.’
Josephine smiled, choking the words out. ‘You can call me Josie, you know, we aren’t in the Court anymore.’
Demorn broke her grip, laughing. The power of the rock was invading her body. She could feel the pull of the dark sorcery be
neath it. ‘Do what you will, witch. You’re insane if you think you can control those forces.’
Josephine held out her hand, and the stone sprang back into her palm. The crystal ate them, a grey light flooding her system. Demorn felt herself rushing toward the sky. The lake was an ocean of black and white rerun signals below her, filled with ghosts. She looked back toward the shore and saw the ruin of a shattered fort, burning with ghostly fire, green flames against the monochrome backdrop. She saw black-suited figures running towards them, guns in their hands, shouting. But it was like a silent movie and they were just stills, negatives, then gone. Demorn looked toward the sky and it felt like infinity. The sun seemed dead, burnt out long ago in a dead world. She looked to see where Josephine was, catching only flashes of the witch in black-and-white as slowly the dream overtook Demorn.
11
* * *
For the first few seconds Demorn could still feel Josie’s hand. Then she was gone, a green ghosted image the only memory of the Lady, a faint blurring. The grey-white light around Demorn was invaded with varying colour. She realized she carried the stone. The crystal was heavy in Demorn’s hand, an anchor to the spell and a reminder of something solid and real, all while she herself felt as insubstantial as a ghost or wisp, carried on fickle winds of power.
Demorn looked down. The inky lake was gone. She was above a black and white ocean littered with vessels, commercial fleets skirting the dangerous mainland and the war that consumed a huge portion of it. Pirates tagged behind them. The death ships, trailing out to a horizon Demorn couldn’t glimpse even as her body seemed to vanish and she became the system itself, barely aware if she even held the stone anymore.
How many of you left now? How many of you still wander the shadow worlds?
The words echoed in her head. How many? She thought of her brother, Smile, so far away, lost inside himself and his longing for Asanti. The ocean below was filled with the wreck of a vast spaceship that stretched across miles. Her eyes could see it outlined against the grey water, a virtual city in ruins, long forgotten at the bottom of the ocean. Was it the Spire or something different?
