Gown of Shadow and Flame

by A. E. Marling

  The first Headless ran from her burning scent. It trailed a gravy of fear that she slurped away.

  The second Headless fell through her dress, tumbling and waddling in the pillar of ash then landing in lava. It bathed, and its bones shriveled black. The vapors of its despair stewed within her into Black Wine, and she burned brighter.

  The third died like the second, with a plop and molten sizzle. So did the fourth, and the fifth.

  Celaise slid with legs forward, her skirt a plow that dropped a row of three Headless into the lava lake. Their ash twined around her in smoldering ribbons looping around her arms and behind her back. Tresses of cinders drifted black and red over her.

  She began to appreciate the different cuts of the beasts' fear. Some slabs of meat were more tender, others burst in her mouth with juices. The size and plenty of the fare also satisfied her. In the same time others would take to nibble their first mouthful, she gorged on a table-full of meat. And she had the pride of finishing it herself.

  Her dress brightened, the air streaming and hissing around her. The hem oozed with blinding yellow and orange. Balancing on one foot, she spun in a spiral of lava. Her train lengthened and whisked Headless away to a realm of unthinkable heat, and when they tried to communicate their agony by stomping, they only splattered more burning orange beads onto themselves.

  I love this dress, she thought. Jerani had provided her an exquisite nightmare. A great gift. Its sulfur scent alone frightened the Headless to a frenzy. Celaise only wished she had not used it on him first. Yet he had forgiven her, enough to drag her to the Bright Palm and beg for healing.

  She still could not imagine how Jerani had convinced a marble heart to do any such thing. Knowing a Bright Palm had brought her back to life made her feel violated, but as the Black Wine flowed richer in her blood, she felt more like herself again. Life was still worth living.

  A monstrapede reared, claw arms grasping, then slammed down in a burst of dust. It rippled its way toward her, and its feet thudded and gouged the ground.

  Celaise did not know if this was the monstrapede that had maimed her, but with Black Wine thudding in her head, she would brutalize it all the same. First she checked to see Hero and her center of vulnerability well behind her, and Jerani was also at a safe distance. Then she soared and twisted in the air.

  Her dress' train swept twice in a twirling fan of red, crashing down in the center of the monstrapede in a gush of lava. The chain of Headless split, both halves punching the ground with their many feet to try to flee her.

  Their desperation to run only made her stronger.

  The air blackened and writhed with heat as she jumped after a series of ten linked Headless. Sheets of fire rained from her dress, sticking to their plated shoulders and melting. Skin-Backs scrambled out in a rush of flabby pink. Celaise caught them in cinder scarves that whipped about her, pulling crawling pest and Headless alike into the dark blaze of her dress.

  As she brewed more Black Wine, her dress grew in length and intricacy. The tides of her lava silk could engulf a house, and ribbons of red fire and black ash whirled about her in a skin-shredding thicket. Her train split in two, forking like a serpent's tongue, and it scythed apart the rest of the monstrapede.

  “Celaise!”

  Jerani's call was small and weak under the hissing roar of her dress, but her senses latched onto the sound of his voice.

  “The Greathearts!” He pointed to where the second monstrapede coiled around the frantic warriors. Men flung their spears, ran, then dropped to their knees when they could run no more.

  Celaise swept as a comet smoldering through the sky. She collided with the ground beside the chain of beasts, and the loam buckled and sank into a crater. A whoosh of air and grasping ribbons pulled the monstrapede downward. It wriggled and jerked, the front Headless trying to free themselves from the death grips of those behind as they all slid into the ember-pleated drifts of her dress and were devoured by lava.

  The terror of the remaining Headless smelled like meat roasting over a hundred cook-fires, all in her honor. She swelled into the air, riding the updraft of bliss into the heights above the battlefield. Her dress darkened, the lava far below her now. The swaths of magic cloth fluttered and bloomed like an opening black rose.

  The beasts fled. They left behind all the fright she needed to strike them down from afar. You can't outrun your fears.

  The ashen folds of her dress stormed. Obsidian fringes snapped forward and back along the length of her gloves.

  Her fingers lit with blinding purple.

  Lightning sprayed in white-violet volleys. The Headless popped off the ground, jerking and twitching. Hearts burst. Limbs lolled.

  Celaise pirouetted and shoved her palms forward in a crackling blast of red. Tendrils of light thrashed the ground, and more beasts rolled toothed-belly up.

  Her arm swung, and a flail of green lightning raked another hunting pack. Their mortal fear was unspiced but strong. Black Wine saturated her, and she felt as if she swam aloft in caressing tides of velvet, every inch of her skin teeming with gasp-worthy sensation.

  The thunderclaps booming across the savanna were her victory bells, ringing their deafening toll for her. Feelings of triumph confused Celaise with their foreignness, but she wished to draw them out, not to kill the last Headless too quickly.

  Hunger rolled in her with more power than the thunder. She had no choice but to lash out faster and faster with talons of jagged streaks of color.

  She glanced down and saw Jerani, amid the scores of warriors. He braced himself against the rampaging charge of desperate Headless. With a wave of her ash glove, his spear flashed with a pulsing charge of lightning. When he struck the nearest beast, a tendril of power dove from his weapon into the Headless and ricocheted between the beasts, jumping between the tribesmen and cows and leaving them alive while killing all their enemies.

  Her lightning faded to leave the battlefield dark and quiet. Not one clawed foot disturbed the peace. Cows whispered to each other in moos as Celaise fluttered downward. Men gulped and held their spears against their chests at the sight of a dress boiling with ash.

  The men's fear tantalized her palate. She had Feasted on a bounty of meat sizzling in its own juices, but the depths of the human minds offered a hundred-ingredient stew, a culinary masterwork demanding she crack open their skulls and drink it down.

  She had not planned to continue Feasting on the tribesmen. Anza and Jerani would see her do it, and Celaise did not want them to hate her. Not after all Jerani's done for me, she thought.

  The flood of Black Wine in her ripened her hunger. But the Lord of the Feast did promise me one tribe. It's my right. It's what I deserve.

  Sashes of smoke vented from Celaise, and ribbons shredded the air around her, each ending in a knife of obsidian. Her face glistened at the center of the billowing folds of dress, reflecting the Mother's blood burning deep within her. The lava light tinted her hair a silvery red as she loomed over the tribe.

  The elation in Jerani dimmed, and waves of worry crushed him. The giant rock snakes could've killed us, but so could she. Jerani felt as if he had slept outside on his pallet to wake trembling in cold dew.

  Celaise choked out the light of the horned moon and stars. The cows did not seem much concerned, mooing and licking grime from each other, but not one warrior cheered, even with all the Rock-Backs dead.

  Tall Tachamwa crept behind Jerani and said, “Don't know what she's thinking, but I've seen friendlier crocodiles.”

  “No, Celaise,” Jerani said under the whir and snap of her layers of gown. “Not like this. Not after everything.”

  Spines of fabric swished out from her arm as she rested one dark glove on her forehead. The air trembled with heat and pressed down on the tribe in a smothering cloud.

  Jerani glanced from his spear—it still sparked—back to Celaise. Thanks to her magic, he had defeated a pack of Rock-Backs himself. 'The Angry Mother blessed the spears of her warriors wit
h fire.' Celaise had wreathed his spear with lightning. She was not the Angry Mother, but she acted out the goddess' will.

  She saved us, and I won't be afraid of her.

  Lifting his spear, he forced himself to meet her eye. “For Celaise,” he said, loud enough for all the tribe to hear. “Celaise of the Greathearts!”

  He shouted her name again and again. The other warriors stared, and Jerani worried none would join in the chant, making him look the fool and soon, likely, a dead fool.

  Jerani held his voice strong despite his doubts. “Celaise! Celaise!”

  “Celaise!” The shout belonged to Isafo. He raised his spear beside Jerani's. “Celaise and her fire!”

  Other warriors found their voices and joined in the praise. Men straightened their cowering backs.

  “Cel-aise! Cel-aise!”

  “Stop it!” Her words echoed with the force of a nearing thunderstorm.

  Celaise hated the sound of their chanting. They could whimper her name, or shriek it, but never praise it. Worse yet, their fear had wafted away.

  She would hurt them, yes, blister them with hot ash until they honored her as she deserved. With fear.

  But there was Jerani, beaming up at her, eyes brimming with pride. His muscled chest surged in and out from striving against the beasts all night. He had saved her, had rescued a Feaster's life because he thought that Feaster deserved to live.

  She had hurt people, and the magic in her urged her to do to it again, to Feast on them all and bask in their screams. If I deserve to live, then Jerani deserves it too. Him and all the rest.

  The Black Wine in her churned, changing directions until her blood flowed backward in spurts of pain all across her body. I could Feast on another tribe, not the Greathearts but another. A deeper part of her knew that would not do. The part of the girl she had once been—the part that had survived the betrayal and the cliff fall—shimmered bright and pure inside her, and she knew she could not Feast on people. She could never murder again.

  Her own dress scraped its knife-thin edges of ribbons against her face and constricted her with layer upon layer of killing lust. Celaise knew she could not resist for much longer, not with all this Black Wine inside her.

  Unless you Feast, you'll go mad. Then you'll Feast anyway. Might as well enjoy yourself.

  She could Feast on them all before the Bright Palm found her center of vulnerability. It would be ever so easy.

  Celaise twitched her head from side to side, pawing at her temples with gloves of ash. She did not want to ruin any more lives. As mine was ruined.

  Not knowing what else to do, she reached into her own mouth then bent over and spewed Black Wine. Her bounty of magic gushed out of her, and she felt herself deflating. Layers of her gown sloughed off, and her ribbons slithered away.

  Jerani and the other warriors cringed. Celaise was vomiting a grime that spluttered and hissed in the moonlight before seeping in the ground with grudging slurping sounds, leaving the unexpected smells of chill wind and wet stone.

  The amount of darkness that flooded outward stunned Jerani. Anything left inside her?

  The rising ash tapered off, and her dress brightened once again to the clear daylight skies. A tension remained in Jerani's chest, only an itch compared to the scrabbling terror he had felt gazing upon her before.

  Tears welled behind Jerani's eyes. At last, he was sure his tribe would be safe.

  After one final spray of dark ooze, a glove of wind blew away beads sticking to Celaise's chin. Her brows with their tufted ends shimmered blue. She greeted Jerani with the calm loveliness of her face, though it mattered little to Jerani how she appeared now.

  Inside, she's wonder and triumph.

  To his surprise, her expression shifted. The red corners of her lips speared-headed upward into a smile.

  Not just a smile, he thought. She's beaming. At me.

  Contentment ambushed him, upending his insides and making him feel dizzy and impossibly strong. He was sure he could lift a bull one-handed.

  “Jerani!” The voice that squealed his name was not Celaise's but Anza's. She and Wedan bounded toward him, ahead of the other women and children of the Greathearts, who must have run down from Big Stump after seeing the Rock-Backs defeated. Gorgeous and the herd came alongside them with victorious moos.

  His sister thudded into his side, nuzzling her bandaged face against him.

  “Anza! Oh, Anza!” He gasped as her bandage fell off to reveal a healed eye. The Holy Woman had been right. It had just been a scratch. If any scar remained, he could not see it in the moonlight that sparkled in her eyes and stole his words and breath. He could do nothing but than hug her close, and he wished for nothing more.

  A calf, Gem, strutted around on her slender legs, butting her nub-horned forehead against Hero's side. The bull nudged the calf over with one of his great horns. Her tail flopped as she lay on her side, mooing in delight.

  “By the Mother's flaming teats!” Wedan said, “Celaise has some flash in that dress, doesn't she? Hey, what's he doing?”

  The Bright Palm marched toward Celaise with nails in his grasp.

  “You have served the Innocent by living,” he said, “and you shall serve them again by dying.”

  After a jolt of disbelief, Jerani set down Anza and raced between the kneeling Celaise and the Bright Palm. “You can't hurt her. Not after everything.”

  “She is a Feaster.” The Bright Palm quick-stepped to the side, trying to pass Jerani. “While she lives, she is a danger.”

  “You are a Feaster?” The Holy Woman clattered her way to stand before Celaise.

  Celaise's smile had flattened. She was still bent over, clutching her sky dress with cloud-white gloves. Her gaze dashed around her, at all the watching warriors, until her frightened blue eyes settled on the Bright Palm.

  “Yes,” she said, her airy voice full of sorrow and acceptance of the end, “I am a Feaster.”

  “But she's also Celaise.” Jerani scrambled into the Bright Palm's way again. “She's the woman who saved the tribes. She's a Greatheart.”

  “She is not.” The shining man shoved Jerani aside.

  “She's my friend,” Anza said, folding her arms over each other and glaring up at the Bright Palm.

  Wedan wrapped an arm around his sister's shoulder. His voice was nervous but resolute. “She fights for us, and you should never kick your own gourd.”

  “Wish we had more warriors like 'er.” Tall Tachamwa positioned himself between Celaise and the Bright Palm. “Would be a spear off my back.”

  Farule leaned on his spear as he limped to the headman's side. “Reckon we'd all be less than cow pats without her.”

  The men filed in behind Tachamwa, forming a wall of people protecting Celaise. The sight filled Jerani with the sweet milk of happiness. He joined them and squared his shoulders at the Bright Palm, even daring to angle his spear at him.

  “You are all wrong.” The Bright Palm knocked aside spears with his spikes and lunged between Anza and Wedan.

  Jerani grabbed him, had his grip broken. Tachamwa caught hold of the Bright Palm's arm, and Isafo tackled him around the waist. Warrior after warrior bore him down. He never stopped struggling, even after Jerani peeled the spikes from his hands.

  Tachamwa sat on the glowing man's back. He said to Celaise, “We'll keep him for you.”

  “He ain't moving.” Isafo had him in a headlock.

  “Maybe tie him to a tree,” Jerani said. “Just for a few days.”

  Jerani had to stop himself from leaping with excitement and relief. He walked to stand beside Celaise. He offered her a hand up, and when she touched it, a thrilling coolness soaked up his arm. Her hand passed through his, and she stood on her own. Cloud mist flowed within her dress between jewels of sky. Staring down at her brightness caused him to shiver.

  Chiya stepped forward from the rest of the women, her eyes wide. “Do all Feasters get a dress like that?”

  Celaise said, “It's not as comforta
ble as it looks.”

  “Would you teach me?” Chiya asked.

  “She'll not.” The Holy Woman slapped Chiya's shoulder and turned a pucker-mouth glower on Celaise. “Now you'll be going. Won't have Gio hurt you. But you're not staying.”

  “After all she did?” Jerani felt as if the Holy Woman had slapped him too, and across the eyes. “You said you wanted her in the tribe.”

  “Not with her being a Feaster. We aren't raising lion cubs, no matter how pretty their coats.”

  “She's not an animal,” Jerani said, “She's a person.”

  “No, she's a Feaster.”

  Jerani never thought to argue with the Holy Woman, but he would not let her talk that way to Celaise. He sucked in breath to begin shouting, when Celaise spoke.

  “She's right. I should go.”

  Pain split Jerani's handsome face. “You can't go because…because you could stay as a Greatheart warrior. You're strong. And you'd be safe here.”

  “But would you?” Celaise's gaze shifted from him to Anza, to the brother Wedan, and to the rest. She felt as if she knew them, almost as if she belonged. At the same time, her hunger coiled and uncoiled inside her, growing more and more painful.

  She would need to find a new breed of beasts, before her resolve broke. Facing away, she knew the tribe would be safer if she left. Celaise had her own family, her own Father and ravenous brothers and sisters. They would never allow her to leave them.

  And she had no wish to live without Black Wine.

  Celaise had never liked saying goodbye, and she guessed a turned back said it better than any words. She glanced one last time at Anza, at Gem's tail swishing brown beside her, at Jerani. Celaise headed out, her pace slow because she could not leave her center of vulnerability far behind, and tonight it dragged.

  The thought of never seeing Jerani again spread a pang over her like needles stuck in skin. She rubbed her cloud-wisp arms over the emptiness of her sides, and she felt cold and desolate.