Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

“Philiastra, did you never wonder?” Agaprei gritted through the pain. “Did you never guess who it was that stole the heart of the forest? The amazon who caused the destruction of everything you hold dear?”

  “Shut up!” Erolina shouted. She pushed down all the harder on Agaprei’s broken ankle, the bones cracking sickly. Agaprei’s back arched from the pain, screaming even louder.

  Philiastra managed to pull herself up on one elbow, the medicinal fumes wafting around her. “What are you getting at?”

  “It’s obvious to anyone who knows international law,” Agaprei grunted, her body shaking in pain. “Storgen would have figured it out long ago if he hadn’t skipped all his classes.”

  “I said, be silent!” Erolina roared, lifting up the spectral sword, to finish her off.

  “Guys, please stop this,” Storgen called out.

  Agaprei drew her other dagger and plunged through Erolina’s boot. Erolina jumped back with a yelp, stumbling for the handle to pull it free.

  Agaprei spat white blood from her mouth. “Even in peacetime no diplomat from a foreign nation can visit a sacred place like Dasikí Chará. With one exception. Members of a royal family have complete diplomatic immunity, and can move around with impunity.”

  Philiastra went pale. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying there is only one amazon alive who had the diplomatic authority to be granted access through Dasikí Chará’s outer defenses. Only one amazon alive who would have been allowed to know where the heart of the forest even was, and only one amazon who could have stolen it. Namely, The Silver Reaper, the sole daughter of Queen Erotas.”

  Philiastra’s eyes filled with anguish. “Was it you?”

  Erolina pulled the dagger free and stood there silently, the magic sword crackling in her hand. “Does it matter?”

  “WAS IT YOU?”

  Erolina’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, it was me.”

  Tears running down her cheeks, Philiastra let out the most gut-wrenching scream they had ever heard. It was a horrible sound to hear, a baleful wail, an inconsolable, ragged cry. It was like listening to someone have their heart torn out of their chest.

  Her eyes glowed white hot, and she rose up from the floor, her body erupting in bright red fire. The entire structure began to tremble and shake, stones and timbers crashing down from above. Then the entire room split in half, the rock and stone pulling apart as a giant tree grew up from the floor. Cages and equipment fell down into the chasm created, and Agaprei was thrown against the wall as hundreds of cages came crashing down like an avalanche, knocking her unconscious. The stone was struck from her burnt hand, falling down into the crag, its crimson light illuminating the darkness and jagged rocks far down below.

  “MONSTER!” Philiastra roared, her tree scooping up cages with its powerful branches and hurling them with shocking force and speed. Erolina tried to dodge, but her injures slowed her down. She sliced the first cage in half, allowing the two halves to pass alongside her, then sliced through a second and a third, but the fourth clipped her shoulder, sending her careening into a pile of steel, crashing hard.

  “MURDERER!”

  Great roots grew up and trapped Erolina within a tight cocoon of hardwood, but a few quick slashes of her flaming sword from within and the cocoon came apart. Erolina stood up just in time to see a boulder coming down right on top of her. She jumped to the side, the massive rock smashing into a support pillar and knocking it loose.

  The entire room began to come apart, masonry and support columns collapsing and crumbling. Storgen fought to move as stone clattered around him, his numb fingers twitching, his toes curling and tingling, but his body would not respond.

  Erolina stumbled, blood dripping down her injured leg. As the enormous tree grabbed a section of the wall and tore it loose to throw, she donned her hood and vanished.

  “COWARD!”

  Philiastra threw out her hands and the tree erupted in pollen, filling the room like a wall of fog moving through. There amid the pollen was an empty space, a void in the shape of a person.

  “TRAITOR!”

  The tree hurled its heavy load at the figure. Erolina fought to get out of the way as a section of wall the size of a building came down on top of her, but her leg gave out and she stumbled. Punching upwards, her armored fist met the wall and it exploded in a shower of rubble, immediately followed by a storm of razor sharp thorns that hit her like a hailstorm. Many merely dented her armor, but many more still found gaps and cracks, piercing her flesh with burning toxin.

  Her ruined cloak sparked and faded, revealing Erolina once more, her skin turning sickly purple where the thorns pierced her, black lines growing across her flesh. And yet her eyes remained as proud and defiant as ever, the sword in her hands growing even longer and brighter.

  Parts of the floors above began to rain down. Hallway tapestries, bedframes and closets, bathtubs and mirrors, many of them falling down into the widening chasm, the crimson stone merely a twinkle far down below.

  Agaprei moaned as she began to stir, a deep bruise on her bloodied forehead.

  Storgen grunted and struggled, forcing himself to roll onto his side. “Stop it! Please! You’re going to kill each other.”

  Erolina held out her hand, blood trickling down her face as she absorbed more magic from the flickering circuits. “That’s the idea!”

  Philiastra’s tree tore a statue from a collapsing corridor above and threw it.

  “I’LL KILL YOU!”

  Erolina fired a blast of energy behind herself, rocketing out of the way as the statue smashed through a wall.

  “I’LL KILL YOU!”

  The tree bent over and ripped up a huge section of the floor. It flung it hard, smashing though load-bearing beams and taking out the entire east wall. Erolina rocketed up along the wall then corkscrewed along the ceiling to avoid it, tearing up the rock and splitting the timbers as she flew.

  “I’LL KILL YOU!!!!!!!”

  The tree uprooted itself and wrapped around Philiastra, wood growing thick and hard into sturdy smooth plates, branches and roots intertwining to form strong tendons and muscles beneath flexible skin. Within seconds it was no longer a tree but an armored giant made of wood.

  Erolina charged in with a mighty warcry, ducking beneath a giant armored fist and slicing, her sword cutting the hand clean off. She rocketed to change directions, avoiding a powerful hook, only to be bashed from her blindside. She careened down and slammed hard into the ground.

  A second fissure opened up in the floor, then a second, then a third. The entire Kyvernítis began to come down around them, roots of towers and buildings above smashing down through the ruined ceiling, miles of glass tubing twisting and breaking apart, falling down into the depths of the opening crags. Walls crumbled to pieces as if they were nothing more than children’s blocks. The sound was astonishingly loud, so severe it overpowered Storgen’s hearing completely, creating a kind of half-silence of pressure waves and impacts thudding through his body.

  An aqueduct shattered somewhere far above, and black water rained down onto his body as Storgen fought to rise up to his knees. He could see Agaprei crawling to the edge of the abyss, looking down and searching for the crimson stone.

  “I have to save it,” he could see her mouth say, but he could not hear the words.

  Then something began to rise behind her, a lifting form breaking out of the rubble, blood oozing from between the shattered masonry.

  “Agaprei!” Storgen yelled out, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice over the earth shattering tremors.

  The wooden giant was hit by a falling archway, shearing off much of its armored shoulder as it lifted its foot up to stomp. Erolina slashed with her sword, severing its foot. It punched with the stump of its wrist, and she cut that off. too.

  The wooden giant roared bestially, and red flames extended from its stumps like ghastly fingers. It clawed at Erolina, their weapons meeting with a sharp bang of power and an explosion of red ligh
tning.

  Over and over again they clashed, the remaining ground shattering and cracking around them as they fought. The air itself was rent with each swing, red hot embers scattering about and setting alight fallen cloth and wood. Erolina refused to give even an inch, holding her ground even as her blood pooled beneath her feet, her armor shearing off from the shockwaves, her silver hair reflecting the flames growing around her as she matched her opponent blow for blow. Faster and faster they fought, their ethereal weapons squealing and cracking against one another, circular shockwaves of light and magic expanding outwards like fireworks.

  Storgen screamed as Agaprei tied a rope to an exposed girder, preparing to rappel down into the crevasse to retrieve the stone. Behind her, the figure rose to its full height, burning stone and ash falling away, revealing bleeding muscles and tendons without skin, and a skeletal face without eyelids.

  Master Kynigó lifted up his arm, a skeletal grin on his lipless face as his fingernails grew long into a curved saber.

  “Agaprei! He’s behind you!” Storgen yelled, so loud his throat felt like it might break.

  The tremors became stronger and stronger. It felt like the entire Alchemy Tower was coming apart. Erolina blocked a claw strike from a hand as tall as she was, and her spectral blade was torn from her hands. Undaunted, she charged straight in, barely avoiding a pound from the other hand that smashed apart a fallen support beam. Blood running down her face, Erolina reeled her fist back and punched, cracking the wooden chest of the giant apart and revealing Philiastra within.

  Before it could heal, Erolina reached out, grabbing Philiastra by the throat. At the same time, the giant hand caught a hold of her.

  Face to face, their eyes burning with hate, magical energies storming around them in a maelstrom, Erolina crushed Philiastra’s throat, while Philiastra crushed Erolina’s body.

  Philiastra strained and gagged with pain, but she would not let up.

  Erolina squirmed and grunted, her joints popping, what remained of her armor bending and creaking, but she would not back down.

  They both squeezed harder, as hard as they could.

  Then a sound froze them solid. It wasn’t so much a sound, as it was something they felt.

  As Master Kynigó brought down his sizzling blade, Storgen forced his body to move. It felt like he was moving in slow motion. He felt like he was moving in molasses, she was still so far away, and he was moving so slowly. He could see it so clearly, she would not react in time, and she would die. She was going to die right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Reaching out his arms, he screamed one final time with a hoarse voice.

  “AGAPREI!”

  Her rope secure, the tower collapsing around them, Agaprei noticed the shadow cast on her from behind, and turned around. Her amber eyes went wide with realization as the blade struck down, the image of the tip reflected like a mirror in her trembling eye.

  Storgen shoved her hard, knocking her away as the blade fell.

  Erolina and Philiastra turned their eyes towards the disgusting wet sound. Skin cutting, flesh tearing, bone shattering. They watched in abject terror as Storgen’s severed arm slowly spun in the air, trailing blood as it fell down into the growing darkness below.

  “STORGEN!” someone screamed, her voice high and piercing.

  Storgen fell hard to the ground.

  “STORGEN!” another voice screamed, her husky tone full of panic and dread.

  Storgen screamed, grabbing at the bloody stump where his right arm used to be.

  “STORGEN!” a third woman screamed, her tremored voice rocking as she hit the ground hard.

  Storgen’s body bowed with torture, blood spraying from his bloody stump of his elbow.

  Master Kynigó stretched his arm out and grabbed Erolina, slamming her into the ceiling and then hard into the floor. Her shoulder shattered with a sickly crunch as she hit.

  With his other arm he grabbed Philiastra, tearing her out of her wooden construct and slamming her hard against the wall, impaling her through the shoulder on an exposed rebar.

  He grew a third arm, picking up Agaprei by her broken ankle like a doll. She hollered out in agony as he threw her, stacking her in a pile with the other two.

  “Now,” Master Kynigó hissed. “You all die!”

  He opened his mouth and vomited a beam of energy as wide as a house, streaking out towards the girls, vaporizing rock, wood, and steel as it went.

  Suddenly his head was yanked back hard as something jumped on his back. Storgen wrapped his feet around the demi-god’s chest, pulling back on his hair as hard as he could with his remaining hand.

  The beam pulled upwards, slamming into the wall just above the girls, burrowing through layer after layer of rock and stone drilling a mammoth hole through the width of the tower until finally bursting out the side, streaking off into the horizon.

  The light of the setting sun poured in through the bored tunnel as Master Kynigó reached back, grabbing Storgen’s feet as he lost his balance and tumbled backwards.

  They fell down into the fissure, dark energies boiling off the skin on Storgen’s legs as they tumbled and fell. As they fell into the range of the crimson light, Kynigó squealed like a wounded animal, his powers vanishing as he released Storgen’s legs.

  Master Kynigó hit hard on a jagged rock, impaling him through the back and bursting out through his chest.

  As Storgen landed in a thick pile of ash, the demi-god came apart, his body disintegrating. It started at the fingers and toes, his bones and flesh wasting away to nothing, burning away into fume.

  “You…” he whispered through dissolving teeth. “I curse you…from now…until the end of time…you will never…find forgiveness…ever…”

  His crumbling skull fell away as his ribcage, his goat-like eyes wide with fear, boiled away into nothing.

  The tower began to completely collapse. Large sections breaking free like ice from a glacier and falling into the sea, sending up jets of water half a mile high.

  The girls pulled themselves to the edge of the abyss and saw Storgen’s broken and burnt body laying at the bottom.

  “Oh, no, Storgen!”

  Tears running down her cheeks, Philiastra took the rope and lowered herself down, the fibers growing slick with her green blood. The tremors became worse and worse, the rock around her fracturing and coming apart.

  She grabbed hold of Storgen’s belt, and the ground gave out around him, thousands of tons of dirt and debris falling away beneath them, into the rising darkness beyond.

  “Heave!”

  Erolina and Agaprei pulled with all their might, lifting the two up, inch after painful inch.

  When they reached the top, the floor dropped out from underneath them, the tower crumbling and collapsing all around. They landed hard, then made for the sunlight, dragging and limping, stumbling and clawing as everything came apart.

  Outside, ships sped away as fast as they could. Those nearest the tower were dragged beneath by the undercurrent as a mountain of material plunged into the tortured waters. Those ships farther out steamed for all they were worth, pulled back closer and closer, many were impacted by falling cities and avalanches of material.

  As the last of the tower tumbled beneath the waters, the ocean was pulled down into the shape of a bowl, then the sides came snapping shut, slapping into one another in a death spray of foulness and blood.

  The ocean waters began to calm, and there was no evidence that any structure had ever existed there at all.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  When we are born, our hearts are pure, innocent. A clean slate ready to be written upon. As we grow, the heavier things begin to cling to us. Regret, betrayal, sorrow, lies, guilt, grief. It grows heavier the longer we live. It slows us down, crushes our joy, chokes out the light. Year upon year, decade upon decade, we gather the pangs of loss and the agony of failure, like dirt and mud introduced to clear water.

  To live forever would be to condemn
our souls to an eternal night devoid of light or hope. Thus, the Fates in their mercy devised an end to our suffering.

  -Parable from the Holy Scrolls of Soeck, Fifth Binding, Third Stanza

  Erolina and Philiastra sat silently in their chairs, their eyes chafed from weeping, their faces sullen and empty. Outside, it was raining. It was always raining now. The dark clouds cast everything in a gloomy pallor. What light there was felt dour and heavy. Golden fixtures were dulled and somber, marble floors were morose and cold.

  Outside the waterfalls fell, rivers of tears to accompany the rain. Even the flowers had died. There was no warmth left in this place. There was no warmth anywhere.

  Philiastra dropped her head and began to cry anew. Her moment of numbness had passed, and the pain had returned again. It came and went, like a bitter acidic tide. Gone for just long enough to renew the sting, then back again with relentless force. Even Erolina had to cover her eyes, her tears running down from beneath her fingers.

  It had been two days since they had returned to the Levánta falls, and none of them had slept a wink. How could they, when Storgen was fighting for his life just on the other side of that door? Resting felt wrong, treacherous to his memory, yet any attempts to honor him felt as filthy and hypocritical as a thief at church.

  Erolina leaned back. The bones in her shoulder had set, but she still required a sling while the magical salves did their work.

  The doctors and nurses were moving in and out less often now. They knew the news would come soon. Good news could not be hoped for, only bad or worse news, so they held onto the moment of not knowing, letting time drag out like a sharp knife. In bitter anticipation of woeful change, even that moment of distress and heartache felt preferable to what they feared was to come. Right now, there still existed a lingering hope. A distant candle in the darkness, a faint glimmer in the mists, and they clung to it, however small, before it vanished completely.

  The door to the lobby opened up, startling both of them. It felt like the coming of death.