No Return

by Zachary Jernigan

  She slammed her forehead into his nose, relishing the crunch of crushed cartilage. He reeled back and tripped on a splinter of wood, crashing to the floor.

  She stepped forward and stopped, sword halfway out of its scabbard. The man was dead.

  “Shit,” she said. “Shit.” She set chair upright and fell into it. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  She felt eyes upon her and looked up. “Get the fuck out,” she told the remaining White Suit. “If your other brother’s still alive, take him with you. No. Don’t say a fucking word. If you say anything, I’ll have to kill you.”

  Only words. Her anger had expired the moment her backside hit the chair. She watched the man check his dent-faced brother for a pulse—another sign of inexperience. Just a glance at the boy, and she knew he was alive. Take him to a good healer, and he would be as good as new. Being young and resilient had its advantages.

  The young man lifted his brother over his shoulder and walked out the door without a word. Undoubtedly, he would return with other members of his order. They would scold him for sneaking out of camp, but they would come nonetheless.

  Churls sighed and dropped her chin onto her chest. Anger flared again as her thoughts touched upon Vedas.

  In one evening, she had made a mess of everything.

  “Barkeep,” she called. “You there?”

  Nothing. He had probably exited out the back. Very likely, he was now gathering a few reinforcements.

  Having been in similar situations more than a few times in her life, Churls considered which would be better: leaving, or pouring herself another drink for the wait.

  EBN BON MARI

  THE 26thOF THE MONTH OF ROYALTY, 12499 MD

  THE CITY OF TANSOT, THE KINGDOM OF STOL

  Ebn breathed in the heavily magicked air, the almond-and-bloodscent of elder semen and menstrual fluid mixed with her own juices. “You have been careless,” she told Pol.

  He lay on his side, tangled in his bed sheets, unconscious. Naked, she sat cross-legged before him, caressing his cheek with the back of one finger, watching the last drop of the spell of compulsion disappear into his ear canal. Her eyes lingered over his form. She outlined the fists on his chest with a clawtip. A tingling moved into her thighs. Warmth spread throughout her torso, rose into her neck and filled her head.

  A far more dizzying sensation than she had imagined, being in complete control of him.

  This was not the night’s only surprise. She had not dared imagine overcoming him would be so easy. Picturing all the ways he might defend himself, she had planned meticulously. Never had a person walked the halls of the academy armed with so many spells. How could she have known a mere act of daring would be sufficient to the task?

  Traditionally, a mage did not attack another mage in the confines of her home.

  It shocked her to discover Pol had relied upon the force of tradition alone to insure his safety. History notwithstanding, a smart man would have warded his apartment against physical attacks. He would have painted alarm sigils on his bed frame. As it was, Pol’s lore had been laughably easy to neutralize. She had walked into his apartment as though it were her own, and ensorcelled him while he slept.

  Undoubtedly, she would replay the moment for many years afterward. Finding him asleep, as vulnerable to her as a child. Setting the vitreous sphere of her spell in the center of his perfectly formed ear. Watching it collapse into a puddle and enter him.

  Though there was no formal punishment for assaulting Pol in his sanctuary, she would hardly win friends with the action. Of course, she had no intention of anyone discovering it. And even if someone did, who would believe the claim? She had lost some of her clout in the encounter with Adrash, surely, but she was not yet discredited. The foundations sunk over decades of consistent leadership could not be uprooted easily.

  No one would suspect anything so disgraceful from the outbound mages’ captain.

  “You have been careless,” she repeated, and flipped the sheet from his hips, revealing the length of his erection. The tongues, which had until now remained in her wrists, emerged from her palms slowly, almost as if the thought of what lay ahead frightened them.

  “Wake up,” she commanded.

  His eyes snapped open, then widened as his doubled pupils focused on her. They lingered on her breasts, her lower stomach. Otherwise, he did not move. Only the muscles controlling eyes and respiration remained under his control. At the same time, her ensorcelment had heightened every sensation, forcing him to the most intense state of physical arousal.

  To his credit, he did not panic or struggle against the spell. She could see this much in his gaze, in the controlled manner of his breathing. She knew him very well, indeed.

  “You have destroyed your body,” she said, idly tracing the sigil tattooed on his shoulder. “And for what? If you had only lingered on your plans a bit longer, you would have seen the error of your thinking. If your mind were not so clouded with arrogance, you might have recognized your inferiority and stayed in your place. Maybe in time you could have become something.” She leaned forward and smiled with a mouth full of small, white teeth. “After all, I can only live so long.”

  She held her hands up, palms forward. The tongues strained toward him.

  Now, his eyes showed panic. His breaths came fast and shallow. Prone to mutations, eldermen nonetheless possessed a near-instinctive fear of deformity among their kind. Small deviations from the norm often signaled instability of character. The most extreme mutations revealed hidden talents—the ability to cast terrible, chaotic magic.

  Some claimed the proof of such beliefs lay in elderman history. Here, some said. Look at this. We have never been a stable people. We have always been prone to destruction and dementia. Arrogance has always been our greatest sin.

  But Ebn had learned much of human history. She had long ago realized both species held the capacity for good, for evil. Eldermen suffered with the knowledge that they were second best in the world—a sterile, complicated race that looked upon itself as inferior, when in fact the opposite proved true time and again. Even she had all but hidden this understanding from herself. She had held herself back for too long. Mankind and its talented hybrid children needed to change, to prove themselves worthy to Adrash, or Jeroun would be destroyed.

  I can bear this message, Ebn told herself. I can be the leader of this movement. We eldermen must no longer search in the sky for redemption, but amongst ourselves. We must cleanse the world of its waste, beginning with our own household.

  She let her forearms drop leisurely, observing Pol’s reaction.

  “Does this feel wrong?” she asked as her tongues licked the skin of his shoulder and chest. His skin tasted of alchemical ink, copper and blood. “That I am here in your bed, touching you this way? Are you scared that I will rob you of these symbols that you have painted upon yourself? Are you scared that I will steal your power?” She shook her head. “No. No, I will not do that. They are yours. You will die with them. When your body is burning, they will erupt from your skin like fireworks, signaling to the world that a true sorcerer has died.”

  She pressed the claws of her right hand into his hip and dug five gouges in his flesh.

  Blood flowed. A tremor passed through his lungs. His indrawn breath faltered.

  She laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

  ‡

  Her mouth rose and fell on his erection. The head of his cock touched the back of her throat and she gagged, but kept at the task. She let him feel the rasp of her teeth. The tongue of her right palm slipped in and out of his rectum, and her left hand lay under his buttocks. She lifted his hips toward her mouth, simulating the thrusts of sex.

  Twice, she thought she heard him moan, but it was only the ragged sound of his breathing. His eyes twitched under their lids. She bit his inner thighs hard enough to draw blood, exciting herself with the small reactions of his body. Fluid dripped from her in viscous strings, hardening into thin crystal spells that cracked under
her knees as she maneuvered around the bed, searching for unbitten skin, new angles from which to admire his body.

  She longed to have him inside her, but knew doing so prematurely would result in unsatisfactory release and the failure of her plan.

  No, she needed to control herself. She had inserted the most important spell, the very same that now dripped from her womanhood, just before breaking into his apartment. A modification of her own spell of compulsion, it was designed to gradually turn her desire into a tool, providing her with the anger to overcome the love she still felt for him.

  For despite the damage she inflicted, as yet she could not conceive of murder. Without assistance, she would not do it. She would instead hurt him, humiliate him, possibly even ruin his beautiful body—but she would not strike a killing blow.

  Her body did not have more resolve than her mind, yet it needed to.

  The smell of the crushed spell rose from the sheets, warmed her lungs and loins. Her labia swelled, pulsed between her legs. She moaned and ground her wetness against his kneecap, smearing a trail of her spell over his thigh. Its surface hardened, cracked, and floated into the air, a fine cloud of diamond dust that settled upon their skins. She imagined with what horror he breathed the magical essence in, uncertain of its exact composition or effect.

  It did the same for him as it did for her, filling him with fury sufficient to melt steel. Ultimately, both of their minds would swell with murderous intent—but only she would have the ability to act on it.

  Despite the swelling waves of anger, her desire remained. She lifted her head and straddled his hips, positioned so that the head of his cock pressed against her anus. Slowly, carefully, she lowered herself upon his erection. It took much care, for he was larger than she had anticipated, and she did not typically allow a man this access.

  “A gift,” she whispered, rhythmically tightening her sphincter on the base of his shaft—a surprisingly pleasant sensation. “And a reminder of what you will never experience again.” She leaned forward, one hand on his chest and one poised over his face. She pried his left eyelid open with the thumb and middle finger of her right hand, and waited until he met her gaze. “Have you always loved men? Did I mother you too much?” She positioned her index claw over his eye, nearly touching it. “Is that why you never looked at me?”

  She paused, and in this moment her spell asserted itself fully, flooding her with surety and purpose. Rage, acidic and deliberate, as inexorable as the revolving of the planets, moved her finger, plunging her claw into the soft tissue of his eye.

  The delicate, lashed mouth of his eyelid closed around her finger. The punctured eyeball spasmed. Tears and blood flowed from the wound, pooling in his ear and soaking the sheets under his head. His chest shuddered and heaved under her hand, and his other eyelid fluttered, revealing an amber pool, a madly vibrating hourglass.

  Her finger was now buried in his eye up to the first joint. She crooked the digit and tugged, at the same time rising off his erection. After a moment of resistance, the eye came free with a loud pop and his penis slid free of her anus. The sharp pain made her gasp, and she inadvertently ripped the optic nerve and blood vessel free from their socket. A mild disappointment, for she had planned to prolong his pain and discomfort.

  The breath wheezed from him.

  The tongue in her hand flickered back and forth, in a frenzy over its prize. The iron and salt taste of blood came to her, filled her entire.

  Two hearts leapt against the confining walls of her ribs as she guided his erection into her. She rocked atop him, searching for the right angle. When she found it, the temptation to begin bucking nearly overcame her.

  But she resisted temptation again. Wicked magic flowed within her veins, its temper granting her control over her ferocious libido. She would drag this out, his pain, her pleasure, until she knew for certain she could strike a killing blow. As her hips slowly rose and fell, she crushed his disembodied eye against his chest and smeared the gore over his inked torso.

  “Is this your first cunt?” she asked. “It is not so bad, is it? Pol, you fucking fool. If you had but submitted to me every now and then, let your pride falter now and then, you could have fooled me completely. I love you, Pol. I love you.” She tightened herself around his cock, hard enough to cause a swift intake of his breath. “But you have known that for some time, have you not? And still you chose to betray me.”

  She thrust faster, leaned forward to press her torso to his. Turning his head so that only his good eye showed, she whispered into his ear, “Another thought occurs. You intended to betray our faith. You would see everything that I have worked for destroyed, and for what? So that you may influence Adrash to cleanse the world? What inspired such evil thoughts? Certainly it was not me. I would have steered you away from evil.”

  Her thighs twitched against his hips as waves of pleasure crested and broke throughout her body, and she finally started to buck, slamming her hips into his. Her breaths came fast and shallow. She closed her eyes, moaned his name.

  Of their own accord, her fingers crawled up his chest and tightened around his throat.

  ‡

  She had kept the man Jarres in her apartment for two weeks. As the full extent of Pol’s betrayal became apparent, the tortures she inflicted upon his lover grew more severe. By the eighteenth day, he was little more than a bloodless husk of flesh, kept mere seconds from death by a collection of preservation spells Ebn had extorted from the Medicines Proctor.

  The progression from threats to outright torture had not been rapid, nor had it occurred as a result of the information the man provided. In truth, his account rarely varied. Instead, something within Ebn changed. She listened, and with each repeated word grew to hate the man. He came to symbolize all that had been taken from her by Pol’s betrayal.

  Her hope, her desire, perverted and made hollow. Her love, turned to hate. She punished Jarres for reminding her of these facts.

  She punished him when her informants revealed that Pol had not called on Jarres’s home or inquired at White Ministry hospital, despite the man’s nearly two-week absence. This further proof of Pol’s callousness enraged her. Jarres suffered for Pol’s sins. He begged, and screamed, and Ebn erected a sound barrier to keep others from hearing.

  She listened, and then she stopped listening.

  Memories filled her head. Memories of Pol, the shy sixteen-year-old boy who had come into her life. Eating breakfast with him, once every month. Teaching him, watching him grow into an adult. Feeling her lust turn to devotion, knowing she could not control its headlong progression. Love’s assumption of her entire life.

  Pol’s voice came to her on the wind, out of the mouths of strangers, woke her from a dead sleep. Hoping to hear anything new, some sign that he had not actually betrayed her, she lingered on every word and slowly killed Jarres, who only confirmed what she already knew.

  The bearded man’s voice became ragged. He screamed until he coughed blood. When there was no blood left to thrust up, he wheezed and he cried, and then there were no more tears, no liquid in his body. His eyes stopped tracking and shrunk within his withered face. She anointed him with alchemical salves, spells to keep his pitiful body from failing. Pressing an ear to his chest, she listened to the creak of his lungs, the parched stutter of his heart. Like so many of the sounds she had heard since Shav’s visit, these too resolved into words:

  You are a relic.

  You are a fool.

  Finally, she killed the man, silencing his horrendous, dry-rotted voice. But instead of release, the act filled her with new urges, desires that spoke with the rustle of dead leaves and old bird bones, alien cravings that whispered as softly as flakes of rust under one’s feet, as quietly as hairs ripped from the scalps of corpses.

  She watched the Needle rise every evening, and imagined it descending to the surface. She pictured the fiery gouges the spheres tore in the atmosphere as they fell, the new stars blooming on the horizon, the clouds of molten ear
th rising into the sky. She felt the world’s crust crack beneath her feet. She heard the voices of millions crying to their god for salvation.

  Stroking the surface of her voidsuit, she thought of ascending to the heavens—of tempting Adrash to make her vision reality.

  Eventually, she found the strength to admit the truth:

  Pol’s betrayal had infected her soul.

  His death was the only cure.

  ‡

  And yet for several seconds she fought her own hands. “Please,” she said, unable to halt their tightening on the soft flesh of his neck. Like molten iron freezing in a cast, her fingers hardened into crescent vices. “Please,” she begged. “No. Do not do this.”

  Pol’s remaining eye watched her. He breathed evenly, drawing air deep into his stomach.

  The muscles of her jaw stood out as she resisted not only the spell, but her own sexual release. Slowly, she ground her hips to a halt. The saliva bubbled on her lips, stretching from her chin to his chest.

  “You made me do this,” she managed through clenched teeth. “If you had only...”

  Her claws bit into the sides of his neck, entered his flesh. His breathing was not impaired, for she had still not allowed the bridge of her palms to collapse onto his windpipe. He closed his eye and a groan built in his throat. It vibrated throughout his body. The moment held—a single note.

  She held herself on the verge of giving in, on the edge of climax. He waited for death.

  “Wake up!” she commanded. “Wake up and stop this!”

  Desperation turned to laughter and the spell thrust her forward, elbows locked so that her full weight fell upon his throat.

  It was like falling upon stone. The bones of her hands and forearms rang like bells, accompanied by a pain so severe she toppled sideways from the bed. The agony spread into her shoulders, compressed her ribs and closed her throat. She writhed on the floor as a great light bloomed above her.