Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  The hands grabbed hold of her, the barbs piercing not her skin but her spirit. Philiastra screamed as her soul was invaded, her memories violently sifted through, her thoughts mercilessly drawn out and laid bare for all to see. It was beyond humiliating, every sovereign part of her, every untidy corner was put on full display.

  She tried to hide from it, tried to scurry away to some safe corner in her mind, but the will of the forest was completely overpowering. She as forced to watch as they displayed every lie she had ever told, every unkind act she had performed, every shameful and regretful moment of her life. She couldn’t look away; she couldn’t even blink.

  Before her she could see her own memories played out like moving pictures. She saw herself happily studying her first lessons at the Singing Pools of Jenala. She saw herself excitedly showing off her first transmutations, changing the shape of rocks inside of simple alchemic circles.

  “Why do you wield the black art?” the forest asked again.

  She tried to fight it, but her lips began to tremble and move.

  “I didn’t know it was evil,” she whispered. “I thought it was just a science. Mathematics. I didn’t know what it really was.”

  “You have not answered our question.”

  Tears began to form in her eyes as the probing became even deeper. She saw herself as a child, Gaetan and Phyllis comforting her, holding her close in her bed after she had woken up from yet another night terror. She saw herself in the kitchen, crying as she held a tray of cupcakes, burned almost beyond recognition. Gaetan and Phyllis walked in to discover her, then each scooped one up and took a bite, pretending that they were delicious and praising her for trying.

  She saw herself peeking around a corner, Gaetan collapsed on the floor of the kitchen, his wife kneeling over him and crying.

  Philiastra’s tears began to flow down her face. “My dad was very sick. I was scared. We couldn’t afford the medicine anymore, so I decided to learn how to make it myself.”

  Some of the trees backed off, surprised at the answer.

  “I knew it was against the laws of my people, but…I didn’t want my dad to die. I didn’t want my mom to be sad.”

  Philiastra began to weep openly.

  Now for the first time, there was disunity among the voices. Some of the trees called for mercy, others voiced their understanding, the majority called for justice, demanding that she be punished. Still others countered that Philiastra was only a child when she was separated from her people, calling for leniency.

  The barbs retracted and she was set down in the center of the circle of trees as they debated.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think of me,” Philiastra insisted.

  The spirits of the trees stopped talking and turned to her.

  Philiastra wiped her face and pointed over to the frozen battle. “Right now, that demi-god is defiling your forest. He is raising up filthy, undead creations in your valley. It doesn’t matter if you like me, what matters is you need me, and I need you. Help me defend your forest, and when I’m done I promise to take my heretic butt away from this place forever.”

  The trees nodded at one another and turned to her.

  “Agreed.”

  Suddenly the spirits vanished, color returning to the world, and everything frozen became a flurry of battle once more. Erolina and Storgen were being pushed into a tighter and tighter space by the pressing crowd of moaning shrill constructs. A fresh wave clamored over the side of the cliff, having tripled in numbers and climbed up the steep slopes.

  Concentrating as best she could, Philiastra held out her hand, her skin erupting in blue flame as she reached out to the forest beyond, and to her amazement, it responded. Fresh trees erupted from the ground, the forest spreading down the stumpy slopes and into the valley, tall trees growing from sapling to full size in a matter of moments, as the forest crept up all the way to the edge of the mesa.

  “Careful, you idiot,” Pops cried out as he was sprayed with rubble, cowering behind a barrel. “If you grow the forest up here it will kill us.”

  Her eyes darted and trembled beneath closed lids. “Sorry, I’m trying. This is way harder than I thought.”

  The fresh trees reached down, scooping up boulders and rocks. With impossible strength, they bent back like bow springs, then snapped upwards, launching huge boulders like catapults up to the mesa above.

  The rocks came hurling down with a terrifying whistle, smashing and crushing houses, barns exploded, roads burst to pieces, and the clockwork soldiers were flattened. Storgen grabbed Pops and managed to jump free just in time as a slab of sandstone hammered down where they had been standing, pulverizing a handful of the ghoulish machines, black oily fluids seeping out from beneath the rock.

  “Careful!” Erolina warned, jumping back as best she could with an injured leg as a rock came crashing down. “You’re going to crush US!”

  “She’s a loose cannon,” Pops complained, shadows of the airborne stones passing over his face.

  Philiastra strained, her strength waning. “Give me a break, I’ve never done this before.”

  The sky hailed with stones from above. Even Skotádi had to bob and weave in the air to avoid them.

  Pops threw open a storm cellar and attempted to crawl down inside, but a rock smashed the building next to him, then tipped over, pinning him in place.

  As the final dípsa tou aímatos was smashed, Philiastra’s flame died out. She fell to her knees, her strength completely spent.

  Skotádi clapped his hands sarcastically as he descended. The shattered mesa was no longer a town, but a rock field of impact craters and black oil.

  “That was well done,” he praised. “Truly you have shown why your kind kept their lands for so many centuries. You know, it’s possible you are the last of your kind. If that is true, then it is only fitting that you be buried here along with your kin.”

  With a snap of his fingers, ice rose up around Philiastra, encasing her in a block of frost.

  He held out his staff and released a beam of spectral energy from the dragon’s eye. Erolina tried to block it, but her injured leg buckled under the strain and she stumbled as the beam struck out towards the frozen forest nymph.

  Philiastra could only raise her eyes, her body beyond exhaustion from the exertion.

  Just before it hit her, Storgen jumped in the way, holding his hands out to shield her.

  Skotádi yelped and yanked back, turning the beam away at the last second. The attack sailed off into the distance, hitting the faraway mountain top, and boring a hole right through, before sailing off into the skies.

  Erolina looked around as she rose to her feet.

  “What just happened?”

  Storgen stood there, his breathing ragged and sharp. “He knows that if he kills me, he loses his prize.”

  Skotádi snarled. “Clever boy.”

  The demi-god held out his hand and clutched it tight. Storgen yelped in pain, grabbing at his chest. He could feel it inside him. Those pale albino hand was inside his chest, caressing the base of his heart, holding the beating organ in his hand and squeezing. Tighter…and tighter.

  “You leave yourself way too open,” Erolina shouted as she hobbled past Skotádi and slashed with her scythe, but it was like trying to cut through water, the effect of her blade vanishing as soon as it past.

  She stared in disbelief. “Impossible!”

  Storgen fell to the ground, squawking and coughing as he grabbed at his chest. The pain was indescribable. Had he the ability, he would have torn himself open to remove the fingers that wiggled and clutched inside of him.

  “By the authority of Ambera, I challenge you to a trial of grievance!” Erolina fired a bolt of lightning, but the energy merely splashed into Skotádi’s cloak and sank beneath the surface.

  Skotádi squeezed a little harder, and Storgen’s face turned red, his eyes feeling like they might pop out of his skull. The demi-god stood over him, licking his lips deliciously.

 
; “Stop ignoring me!” Erolina limped up behind the demi-god, launching a flurry of attacks. She sliced, kicked, slashed, punched stabbed, bashed. But nothing had any effect on him at all.

  With a mere wave of his staff, she was thrown back across the ruined mesa, smashing into a boulder and buried beneath a pile of rubble.

  “Now it is time to go home.”

  Skotádi held up his staff and began to swirl it around. The very air bent and folded, swirling up above him like a whirlpool. The sky became darker still, the sun going completely out, and night fell all around them as the whirlpool bent further and further inward, black lightning dribbling out like blood from a wound. Finally, with a snap, the very fabric of reality tore, and the air rent open. On the other side was a terrifyingly familiar sight, the gargoyle balcony, a foul dripping protrusion at the top of the beltline. Storgen was looking once again at the Alchemy Tower.

  Suddenly the rent was stretched, drawn like flowing liquid, swirling away into tighter and tighter spirals.

  Skotádi turned around and found Erolina standing there, blood weeping from her damaged armor, her hand outstretched as she drew in his magic and formed it into a white hot ball in her grip.

  “My child, what are you doing? You think you can absorb the power of a demi-god?”

  He held out his staff and fired a spectral beam. Erolina lapped it up, the ball in her hand growing brighter and larger. “I am an amazon, a daughter of our greatest warrior bloodline. I can take anything you’ve got.”

  The albino laughed maniacally. “Well, then, take it. TAKE IT ALL!!!”

  The beam doubled in strength, then doubled again. It doubled a third time, as tall as he was, like a raging torrent, a flood of light and fire.

  Erolina struggled and fought, her armored boots digging into the ground as she was forced backwards. Her body began to glow, energy escaping from her eyes, overflow spraying out from her ears, spectral fire pouring loose from her mouth.

  “It’s too much,” she screamed. “It’s too much!”

  Fire exploded from her body, gouts of energy bursting out of her skin, tearing her armor to pieces. Unable to contain it, her magic overloaded and exploded, submerging her and her opponent in an expanding ball of ghostly light. The world went light, the noise so loud everything felt silent, then slowly the darkness crept back in, ears ringing from the blast.

  When vision returned, it looked like a crater had been scooped out of the mesa. Erolina lay at the center, her body limp and trembling, blood dripping down her face.

  Skotádi loomed over her. He wasn’t even winded.

  “You know what the sad part is?” he asked. “That was only one percent of my total power output.”

  Her eyes quavered. “You had that much strength to spare? This wasn’t even a battle. Not even close.”

  “No, it wasn’t even close. I could have killed you at any time. But, where’s the delight in that? First, I wanted you to see that you were wrong to even try to oppose me. Make you curse the moment you ever began the path that lead you here. Help you see the truth, that you are about to die, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

  She closed her eyes and a tear broke free, trailing down her face.

  He licked his lips. “Ah, there it is. That is what I wanted to see. That delicious moment when hope becomes despair. Oh, I would have waited a lifetime to see such a display from a prideful amazon.”

  She clenched her eyes tightly, trying to stop more tears from surfacing, but they came nonetheless.

  “And now that you have filled me, my dear. I will bless you with the death you seek.”

  He traced his finger in the air, creating a trio of dark alchemic circles. They glowed to life, tracing ancient sigils within themselves, forming secondary rings and pentagrams within pentagrams.

  With a flick of his fingers they moved, one settling over Erolina, and the other settling over Philiastra and Pops. The rings seethed and burned hatefully, etching twisted and hateful sigils over the bodies below them, and then the curse took effect.

  Pops looked on in horror as his toes became stone, the transformation working its way up his feet.

  He struggled against the rock that held him pinned. “What’s happening to me?”

  “It’s a death curse,” Erolina whispered, her own legs turning to stone.

  Fighting against the pain, Storgen crawled over to where Philiastra sat, encased in the sorcerous ice. Her own body was changing to stone like the others.

  Skotádi floated over and deftly plucked up Storgen by the neck, holding him in the air like a doll, his milky pink eyes looking on in fascination. “Are you ready to go home now, my child? Are you ready to truly be mine? To give yourself to me?”

  He tenderly stroked the dragon’s eye gem across Storgen’s cheek. “Oh, I could make things so very pleasant for you in the tower. For both of us.”

  His feet kicking limply, Storgen grabbed at the wrist holding him, foam dripping from his lips.

  “I will never stop fighting,” he spat.

  Storgen reached down and pulled the arrow free from his thigh and stabbed Skotádi in the face with it. The metal head broke off when it collided with the milky flesh if his cheek, failing to leave even a scratch.

  Skotádi sighed. “Then the punishment continues.”

  He began beating Storgen savagely with his staff, bashing him over and over. Storgen held up his arms to protect himself, but Skotádi hit him so hard his cast shattered to pieces. As the beating continued, Storgen held his tongue, refusing to make a sound, defiantly refusing to give the albino what he most wanted to hear.

  Storgen’s head was wrapped back and forth, but he refused to let out even a whimper.

  Pops hollered in horror as the stone curse worked its way up to his hips. The girl’s curses proceeded likewise.

  Growing frustrated, Skotádi threw Storgen against a boulder, then picked him up with unseen hands and flipped him over, slamming him into the ground. Like a ragdoll he pummeled Storgen against foundations, roads, rocks, back and forth, over and over, until he finally discarded his limp body, battered and broken onto the ground near the edge of the cliff.

  Skotádi stood over the bloody mess that had once been Storgen, his pale thin lips twisted into a snarl, his breathing fast and hard with frustration as he looked down at the defiant little human.

  Forgetting his goals, he picked up his foot and held it over Storgen’s head, intending to crush his skull.

  Then Storgen began to laugh.

  Through swollen lips and bruised cheeks, Storgen laughed harder and harder, blood dripping down his face.

  Skotádi pulled his foot away in fascination, watching oddly as Storgen laughed a deep rolling belly laugh.

  “Have you finally broken, my novelty? After all these years, after all this time, have you finally awoken to the reality? Do you finally accept my benevolence?”

  Storgen bit down hard on something, a bony crack coming out of his mouth.

  “What? What are you…?”

  Storgen spit out a bloody mess onto the ground. For a second, it seemed like he had spit out a cluster of his own teeth, but as the blood dripped away, Skotádi recognized it for what it was. It was two halves of his dragon eye gem.

  Skotádi snapped his eyes to his staff, and found the gemstone atop had been bitten off.

  “No…”

  The device crackled and fumed, then exploded in his hand, all the pent up ghostly energies streaking out in all directions, coiling around rocks, around tree stumps, around broken wagons. The faces within the streams howled and screamed, their rage set loose.

  Delightfully, the specters all turned back as one, leaping upon the demi-god and sinking their ghastly teeth into his flesh.

  Skotádi screamed, grabbing them and tearing them free, but for every two he pulled off, three more latched on.

  “Get off of me!” he hollered, the tortured souls wrapping themselves around his neck and limbs. “Let me go!”

  Summoning
all his strength, Storgen stood up and tackled the albino. They went careening over the side of the mesa, smashing and crashing down the steep incline, Storgen holding him tightly.

  They clashed and rolled, hitting rocky outcroppings and bouncing free, leaving a trail of dust down the side of the mesa.

  Finally, they came rolling to a stop into the forest of fresh trees, and Storgen wrapped his arm around the Demi-god’s throat, squeezing it from behind with all his strength.

  Skotádi’s pink eyes went wide as a new sensation washed over him for the first time.

  Pain.

  Ice cold poison running through his veins, through his very being, burning and freezing a path through his body. He flailed his arms, the vengeful spirits fighting to bind him still, but his efforts were weak, and weakening by the second. His strength was bleeding away.

  “What are you doing? Let me go!” he coughed, his chest growing tight.

  Storgen coughed painfully, wrapping his legs around Skotádi’s midsection to hold him even tighter.

  “Remove the curse on them,” he snarled.

  Skotádi tried to reach back, but his limbs wouldn’t respond. His entire body cramped, his muscles spasming in agony. The souls of his victims bit down into him, vigorously tearing into his flash as ravenously as they could.

  “Never!” Skotádi screamed in wrenching pain.

  Storgen squeezed even tighter, black veins creeping over his flesh, his skin turning purple.

  “It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? A demi-god goes into a forest. Does he die like a human, or is he immune like a god? From the way you’re screaming, I’m guessing it’s the former, but what do you think?”

  Skotádi coughed and hacked. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see. His skin was turning black.

  He fought against the released souls wrapping themselves around him. “If you keep me in here, you’ll die too!”

  Storgen pulled even tighter, black veins crawling across his face. The pain was beyond description. “Don’t you think I know that? But, look at me. Is my grip slackening? Do I show any sign of backing down? I’m willing to die to take you with me. Ask yourself, are you willing to do the same?”