"Are you well?"
"Am I well?" I asked the air. "Am I well...” A loud shout, a man's voice, tore through the air. "Archer!" I cried, snapping from my reverie.
I looked out across the room. Archer wasn't there, but I could hear him shouting up the passageway back to the surface, and I saw minions running after him. Evidently, they had overcome him and were now chasing him up the passage.
"No, please no," I said quietly, but the minion beside me heard my words.
"Stop!" he bellowed with unnatural volume. Every minion, even those at the mouth of the passage, stopped and turned to him. "Behold your new master! Do her bidding!" He gestured grandly at me, and every pair of eyes turned towards me. "Hold up the head, my lady,” he said proudly.
I obeyed.
There was a moment of hushed hesitation and then every minion in the room, over a hundred sinewy bodies, dropped to their knees in supplication before me.
"Whoa," I murmured.
Apparently, I was the new leader of the minions. This was a situation too heavy to deal with immediately. First I had to help Archer. I said to the group. "The others need to stop attacking, Archer."
"A moment, lady." The minion beside me seemed to have found his confidence and appointed himself my right-hand man. I watched as he closed his eyes and furrowed his brow for a moment, then he relaxed and looked at me. "It is done. The Archer has left the City of Caves."
“Shit!” I exclaimed and rushed toward the exit. I stopped after a few steps, time to take advantage of my leadership position. I spread my wings and spoke to the group. "All those chained to walls must be freed and cared for." I pointed at Sid, he was still out cold, and it made my heart hurt. "He, Siddhartha, will be brought to the surface with me, and up there,” I pointed to the break in the rock I had initially crawled through. "You will find the one you call, Spin. He is my friend, care for him and bring him to me at the surface."
"It will be done, my lady!" answered my right-hand man.
"What is your name?" I asked him. At first, he looked shocked but quickly recovered, a deep blush forming on his cheeks.
"Gentip, my lady."
"Thank you for your help, Gentip. I will see you at the surface."
He bowed deeply and then began ordering the other minions around. They had Sid quickly unchained, and a group of minions carried him behind me as I left the hall, Ganaraj's skull still in my hands.
43
The journey to the surface was swift and uneventful. If you consider every minion I met bowing before me as I passed uneventful. I was studiously ignoring the implications of their actions; I didn't want to be their new dictator. I had to find Archer and make sure he was okay, and then there was Sid to deal with. I hadn't taken a good look at him yet, but I had a feeling he was going to need some serious healing from me. At least I no longer had the Bounty to worry about. Word would spread quickly that Ganaraj was dead and without him to provide a reward, the Void would surely stop hunting me. The fact that the minions now considered me their leader would also be a significant deterrent.
I could hear voices shouting. The sound was coming from outside the tunnel, and as I drew closer to the entrance, I could discern that one of the voices was Archer's.
The other was Mhyr's.
Shit.
And they were definitely fighting.
Double shit.
I broke into a jog, and the minions fell into line behind me. The quickened pace increased the sound of their footfalls. I glanced back to see all of them, literally all of them, following me up the passage.
"Crazy."
I could see the entrance up ahead. The sun had risen, and the square before the entrance was flooded with light. After so long in the dark underground tunnels, my eyes streamed as they became accustomed to the brightness.
The two great warriors were circling each other, getting close, but carefully not touching each other as they shouted. Even from the within the tunnel I could feel the tension between them. If they touched bad stuff was going to happen.
"How could you do such a thing?" Archer shouted.
"Me! You have betrayed your kind!" Mhyr screamed in his face.
"I will never love you! Never! You destroyed our love!" he shouted back.
"So you lay with her! A bird! You disgrace me with a bird!"
"Do not call her that!"
"You end our kind, you end true birth for a bird!" she spat back at him.
"You killed it, Mhyr. Your sick twisted mind killed it." Archer's voice was filled with venom.
"I am a warrior!" Mhyr sounded crazed. "That is who we are! She is weak! You have murdered our kind for a weak bird!"
"Weak?" I asked.
I stepped from the passage and into the light. My wings responded to the sun and stretched out to soak it in.
"You think me weak, Mhyr?" I asked her. She was shaking, literally shaking with rage. "Does this look weak to you?"
I tossed the skull of Ganaraj into the air. As it soared, the minions streamed out of the tunnel and formed a wide circle around the three of us. The head hit the ground at Mhyr's feet with a dull thud. Although her skin was the colour of buffed tin, she paled as she looked at the severed head of the former Lord of the minions.
"Well done," Archer said proudly. His eyes were his own again, the evil of the caves no longer tugged at his soul.
"It cannot be," Mhyr whispered.
"Oh, it can be, bitch," I countered. "It can also be that you are going to get the hell out of here before I kick your ass." I sauntered towards her. "Ganaraj is dead, the Bounty is over, there is nothing for you here."
Mhyr's eyes had not left Ganaraj's cold orbs as I spoke, but she looked at me now. The expression on her face made me take a step back. She was smiling, a dark, twisted, crazy person smile.
"You truly are stupid, bird." She laughed; it sent shivers of ice up and down my spine. "You see, you have helped me." She laughed again. "Yes, now I will not have to share your power with anyone."
"What?" My voice was weak as her words slowly made their way through my brain.
"What are you talking about, Mhyr?" Archer asked.
"Don't you see, Archer?" She laughed and then looked at me with such hatred it turned my stomach. "I am the one that set the Bounty."
Time had slowed when I beheaded Ganaraj, but now it moved faster than my mind and heart could decipher. The word Bounty left the pewter mouth of Mhyr and Archer lunged at her. She was ready for it though, and in the blink of an eye she had torn a rib from her chest and thrown it at him. It hit Archer in the chest, and the force knocked him to the ground as the rib became black goo that spread over his chest, pinning him. As Archer fell, Mhyr tore more ribs from her chest and pirouetted, waving the bones in an arch around us. As she did this, a film of silver energy flowed from the bones, trapping me within an orb of power with her. It all happened so fast, inhumanly fast.
I was beyond outgunned.
"You sicken me, bird." Now that we were isolated, Mhyr's voice had become calm in a serial killer kind of way. "Always. Even before you were Banished, I hated you." She began to pace back and forth slowly, like a cat. "Yes, I knew that he wanted you even then. I knew you had caught his eye. So I set about engineering your undoing. I discovered your secrets. I planted the rumours. When you were finally Banished a great sense of relief filled me. I thought that it was over. He would be mine again, and we could bring about the true birth our kind so sorely needed."
"True birth?" Even in mortal danger, I'm inquisitive. I really needed to work on that, if I get out of this alive.
"Stop playing dumb!” She screamed at me, and the force of it threw me against the silver orb. I bounced off the side and hit the ground, my skin tingling where it had made contact with the silvery substance.
"Damn it, Mhyr!" The shock was wearing off, and anger was seeping in. "I really don't know! I've got no memory of the Void!"
"Oh, that's right, I'm sorry." She was serial killer calm again. "Most Trav
ellers just appear, fully formed, amongst their kind. A true birth is very rare, very very rare." She shook her head slowly with each 'very.' It was very, very creepy. "It is much like a mortal birth. Two Travellers of opposite genders, a rarity in itself, must meet and bond. They then mate and breed and the true birth occurs."
"Okay, so just like a mortal birth," I countered from the ground, my legs were too weak for me to stand.
"I have no knowledge of the base acts of humans," Myhr said with a wave of her hand.
"So you're angry with me because Archer won't have sex with you?"
"No!" She was on me in a second, grabbing me by the neck and dragging me to my feet. "I am angry because he stopped being my mate! I am angry because after he laid eyes on you, he no longer wanted me! I am angry," she was screaming in my face, her spit spraying me. "Because you killed my true birth! You destroyed my chance at life!" She punched me in the gut so hard I vomited. My puke sprayed her chest, but she paid no attention to it. "And now I will destroy yours!"
With immense physical strength, she flipped me around, breaking the fine bones of my wings as she pressed my back to her chest and wrapped her arm around my throat. My wings were mashed, broken and useless against her. I tried with all my strength to pull her arm from my throat, but with her free hand she punched me in the back of the head, and I became too stunned to move.
From this position, I could now see what was happening outside Mhyr's orb. Archer was still on the ground fighting valiantly against the black ooze that was bent on keeping him pinned to the ground. The minions were taking turns throwing themselves at the orb itself. Over and over they threw themselves at the silver energy, singeing their flesh, crying out in pain and rage as they tried to save me.
"I will have your power,” Mhyr was whispering in my ear. In my helpless state, her energy began to invade my body, looking for my core, seeking out the deepest part of me. "And after I have your power, I will eat your wings." She licked my earlobe. "I bet they're very tasty."
It was too much, her words in my ear, Archer struggling before me, the minions running and screaming everywhere. It felt like my banishment all over again, and the memory of it brought an overwhelming wave of terror to my body. At first, it was cold, ice cold, and then somewhere in the vortex of pain and fear it started to change. The ice in me began to melt. Through the fear, I could glimpse fire.
Mhyr's hot breath was on my neck, her arm around my throat tightened. Breathing was becoming more and more difficult. Mhyr was chanting something, a stream of words too quiet and mumbled for me to hear. As she chanted the tendrils of her power dug into me more deeply. They wrapped around my heart and began to squeeze. That is when I screamed.
"Good!" Mhyr broke her chant to shout over me. "That means it's working, bird! Soon you will be mine!"
The squeezing was getting tighter, my vision was going black. The minions pounded on the orb, Archer struggled on the ground, a small part of me could hear him yelling my name, and the heat in me grew. I was so warm now; I felt as if I was cooking from the inside out, my skin felt like it would blister.
"What are you doing?" Mhyr asked, her voice angry and yet unsure.
I thought it was Mhyr's power that was making me burn, but I was wrong. This was coming from inside me. I couldn't speak around her choke hold. She shook me hard and screamed the question again.
"What are you doing?"
I grabbed at her arm to stop her shaking. It did nothing to stop her, but when I looked down at my hands, I saw that my skin had erupted in angry red blisters. I strained my eyes to take in my arms. They were also covered in large fluid filled boils. Mhyr grunted in my ear as her hold on my heart doubled.
"I don't know what you're doing, but we will end this now."
The pain was immense. I felt the blisters on my arms burst. Hot fluid covered my face and dripped down my arms. Mhyr was screaming but refused to let me go. The heat within me doubled, burning my very soul. Flames sprang up from hands. They moved like quicksilver engulfing my arms, torso and legs. My vision filled with orange light as my face and hair became a flaming mass. Finally, my broken wings burst into blinding white hot flames.
Mhyr let go of me.
But I was too far gone. I barely felt her power retreat. I just burned. I stood there and looked down at my flaming body. I was a pillar of fire. I felt the orb dissolve. I felt my many minions fall on Mhyr like a wave of angry flesh. I saw Archer stand before me, tears streaming down his face as he screamed my name.
And still, I burned.
I burned and watched the flesh peel from my hands. I burned until I saw bone in my outstretched wings. I burned and burned. And when I thought I could stand no more, everything went black.
44
I was lying on a very firm surface. White light was forcing its way through my eyelids. I opened my eyes to find myself in a room of pure white stone. I could feel a light breeze, and a glance to my left showed me a large open window through which I could see blue sky. I tried to move my head, but my neck was very stiff. The room was completely empty save for the bed I lay on, a simple wooden chair beside it and a mirror. It was large and rested against the wall at an angle that prevented me from looking into the glass from where I lay.
I was covered in a pure white sheet. I could see the outline of my feet and body, but I was smaller than I remembered. With a shock, I realised I could not feel the sheet against my skin. I felt nothing. I only felt the bed because gravity pulled me against it. I felt the breeze because it pressed against my face.
"Where am I?" My voice sounded like a dry reed.
"Good. You're awake."
If I could have moved, I would have. The sound of the man's voice and his sudden appearance in the once empty chair scared the crap out of me.
"What the hell!" I exclaimed from my frozen position on the bed.
"You're alright, calm down."
"Calm down?!"
He was old, he looked about seventy, but in the Void, he could have been a thousand. He was slim and wiry, with bony limbs and long grey hair that hung limply around his face.
He also had wings.
Just like mine.
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to stay calm. He had wings. He had wings just like mine!
"I am a friend." He smiled, his bristled chin twitching like it hadn't been used for the purpose in a long while.
"What's your name?"
"Royal."
"Okay, Royal, are you like me?"
"Not really." He laughed, it was a warm sound. "But if you mean species, are we the same species, then yes. I am like you."
"Really?" I could feel tears starting to trickle down my face.
"Really." He looked at me kindly and pulled his chair closer to the head of the bed. "I heard your call and came running, girl. You are not alone. We have each other now."
He placed his hand gently on the sheet where the bump of my hand was.
"Are you my dad?" I choked the word out over my tears.
"No, girl. You are not a true birth."
True birth. Mhyr. Archer. Minions.
"Archer! The minions! What happened to them?" I struggled to sit up, Royal placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and held me down.
"Easy girl, you’ve had quite the shock. You need to take things slowly."
"What happened, Royal, what happened after I burned?"
"When I got to you they were gone." I half screamed, half sobbed at his words, and he rushed to calm me. "But that doesn't mean they're hurt. When you burned up your power would have blown across that clearing and scattered them to the four winds. I'm sure they're fine, and when you're healthy, you can go and find them."
"Archer?" My heart hurt so much.
"Archer? The silver fella on the Guard?" He looked at me kindly. "Darling, no one but our kind could have approached your flame. Even if he'd wanted to, he wouldn't have been able to withstand the blast when you finally blew."
"So you brought me here?"
"I
brought you here."
"When can I see him again?"
"You might want to wait until you've healed." Royal looked conflicted as he continued. "You don't look so pretty."
"He won't care," I said proudly. Royal patted my arm, and I realised I was itchy. Very itchy.
"Why am I so itchy?" I moved my arm to scratch the other, and like lightning, Royal's hand was there to stop me.
"Don't scratch."
"But why am I itchy everywhere?" I was starting to panic.
"Try to stay calm." Royal was still holding me down.
"You stay calm!" I shouted. "I think I'll freak out, thank you!"
I pushed against him again, and he let me go. With adrenalin fuelling me, I threw back the sheet and sprung from the bed. Every inch of me hurt as I did it like my skin was a piece of ice being cracked by a hammer.
I was now in full view of the mirror.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to dissolve into a puddle of tears. I wanted to weep and rage at what I saw, but I stayed silent. The image in the glass was the worst thing I'd ever seen and my mind shut down around it.
I was a mass of red and black. All the flesh had melted from my body leaving only sinew and skeleton behind. My breasts were gone, melted away, and there were gaps between my ribs that weren't completely covered by the dry tendon that stretched over my matchstick frame. I could see the shadow of my lungs working within their cage. My arms were bones wrapped in red ribbon, the crest of my pelvis was white where it poked through the last layer of fascia that stuck to the bone. My hair was gone. My lips were strips of rough leather. I blinked and watched my eyelids barely close over my blue eyes. And my wings, my beautiful wings, were gone. The vibrant colours that used to frame me had been obliterated, and now only bones remained. Bits of meat were stuck to them like a carcass not quite picked clean.
I was a stretched frame of raw meat and bone.
"Breathe, Phoenix, breathe." Royal's voice was soothing, and my lungs heaved to life at its coaxing. "This happens to us all."
Bounty Of Ash (The Phoenix Series Book 2) Page 16
