by Tristan Vick
“Okay, so the thing is,” Zarine says, plopping down in the seat across from me, not even giving me a chance to refuse her company, “I kinda need to know how you did it.”
“Did what?” I ask.
“The thing with the sword. Defeating the dead army. And how in the seven realms you’re immune to my magic. All of it.”
I take the open bottle and place it against my mouth, catching a glimpse of my wine-stained lips in the bottle’s reflection. Determined to finish off the whole bottle, I tip my head back as far as it will go and take a long swig.
The wine is potent, a tart grapey flavor, but I choke it down all the same. I think I prefer the cheap stuff, I say to myself, and I burp again.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand I let out a satisfied sigh and look up at Zarine. She stares at me with an exasperated look on her face, bewildered by my un-lady-like manners.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” I say with a wry smile, “but first you have to give me something in return.”
“Like what?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say dreamily, staring at her face with a pie-eyed grin. “I’m curious, what would those dark sorceress thoughts of yours suggest?”
She mulls it over for a moment, then her eyes narrow and she looks over at me with a mischievous grin. “How about a kiss?” Zarine asks.
“A kiss? What?” I gasp. A little while ago she was fending off my advances. Was she merely playing hard to get? Why the sudden change, I wonder. Of course, she sees right through me. I do feel like kissing her. In fact, now that she mentioned it, it’s all I can think about. All I want is a taste of Zarine’s darkly painted lips.
I shrug, toss my hair back, and take another long swig of wine. “That’s acceptable,” I say, trying not to slur my words.
“You won’t chicken out will you?” Zarine asks.
“I’m no coward,” say drunkenly, wagging my finger in her face. Determined to prove it, I sit up in my chair, trying really hard not to fall out of it. Zarine is beautiful, in a dark, gothic sort of way.
My eyes settle on her dark purple lips, which almost look black in the dimness of the tavern. Zarine leans in apprehensively. She closes her eyes, cranes her neck forward, and presents her lips to me as an offering. And of course I take the offer. Who wouldn’t?
Tipsy, I crash into her face with my face, my lips mashing into hers uncomfortably. I suppress a drunken giggle as I fumble to find the right amount of pressure, but then what began as a clumsy kiss becomes a much more sensual and titillating kiss. She resists at first but then settles into it. And as one kiss turns into many, our kisses grow wet and delicious.
Pulling back, I lick my lips in delight and let out a sigh. “That was—”
“Surprisingly good,” says Zarine, finishing my sentence for me. She seems almost as shocked as I am to find such a connection exists between us.
“Really good.” I smile warmly at her. She smiles back. It’s all the confirmation I need. With longing in my eyes, I ask, “So, you want to head to my place or…?”
Without warning I feel a dizzy spell come over me. My eyes become bleary and the room spins out of control all around me. I try to fight to stay awake, but for some reason I can’t. When it becomes too much for me to bear, I give into the blackness.
When I awaken, I find myself strapped to a cold table in a dimly lit room. My hands and feet are bound by leather ties and my sword rests clear across the room against the back wall of the chamber. It dawns on me: I’ve been abducted.
5
Squinting past blurry vision, I scan my surroundings. I’m in a stone chamber with one small stained glass window and a few dozen candles to supply light and a bit of warmth.
“Hello,” I call out, but there’s no immediate reply. I’m letting my head bob in a wine-induced stupor when, suddenly, a figure steps forth from the darkness. It’s a woman.
She’s still too fuzzy for me to make out clearly, alerting me to the fact that I’m obviously still rather drunk. The good news, I suppose, is that if I’m still drunk it means it hasn’t been that long since I was taken from the pub. “Where am I?” I ask groggily.
“Where you are doesn’t matter,” the woman tells me. Of course, I recognize her voice. It’s Zarine.
“Zarine? Is that you? What’s going on? Why have you tied me up?” Looking at the leather straps which bind my hands to the table, I smile and say, “Is this some kind of kinky foreplay?”
Her slender face comes into focus, and she stands over me, gazing down at me, but she looks different somehow. Instead of a timid girl fending off my inebriated advances, she’s cold and calm and seems devoid of emotion. “There are more important things to discuss than your sexual proclivities,” she informs me in stately manner devoid of any lingering affection.
“Of course,” I say. I’m still a little confused as to the details, not to mention the sudden change in mood. First we’re making out like a young couple and next I’m being interrogated in her freaky torture chamber.
“Answer me this,” she demands. “How in the seven realms did you defeat Ashram and, for that matter, resist my powers?”
Without thinking, I say in a half-drunken, half doped-up slur, “You drugged me.”
“Yes. I drugged you. You should never kiss stranger girls in dark taverns without noticing what they slip into your drink. But never mind the how. Let’s talk about why. I’m afraid, it was the only way to get you to sober up. I need you to try and focus. I need you to answer my questions.”
Feeling dejected I let my head sink. “So, I merely imagined that kiss, then?”
“No,” Zarine counters, dismissing my own dismissiveness. “The kiss was totally hot.”
“Right?” I say in agreement, raising my head back up to see her gazing at me with her dark and reflective obsidian eyes. Still puzzled as to why she has me strapped to a table though, I ask, “So, what’s all this about then?”
“What this is about is how you managed to defeat Ashram and the dead army so easily.”
“Why is that so important?” I ask her.
“Why?! I’ll tell you why. My real name is Zarine Xankandi of Koroth—realm of the mages. I belong to an ancient order called The Nightshade. We are the sworn protectors of the seven seals to the Nether realm.”
“The underworld?”
“Yes. And someone, or something, has breached our protective barriers and resurrected Ashram. I need to know what we’re dealing with here, and if I’m not mistaken, you’re the first clue in a much bigger puzzle.”
I stare at her with a blank expression. She sighs out of frustration at my total lack of understanding.
“So, I’m like a puzzle, and you want to unlock my secrets? That’s the strangest come-on I’ve ever been propositioned with,” I laugh half drunkenly. “But seeing as I’m already tied up,” I add, “do your worst.”
Zarine smiles at me, grabs my chin with her slender fingers and leans in as if she’s about to kiss me again, but stops short of actually reaching my mouth. With our lips practically brushing one another, I can feel her breath on me as she whispers, “I’m really sorry about this. But I need your blood.”
“My blood?” I repeat. As the thought settles in, I begin to grow worried. “What do you mean you need my blood?”
“An ancient evil has reawakened and I intend to put it back in the grave before it destroys all of Valandra. And since you are immune to my magic and the magic of the Nether realm, this makes you an Outlier.”
“A what?” I ask, completely lost.
“They say every thousand years an Outlier is born. Someone who exists in complete harmony with our universe. This form of existence makes them immune to the mystic arts. I suspect you are one such individual.”
I pull on my straps and ask, “So you had to tie me up to tell me all that? Couldn’t you have, I don’t know, just told me?”
Zarine fetches a goblet from a nearby table then reaches behind her back a
nd pulls out an ‘S’ curved blade. “I’m afraid I had to tie you up because I cannot risk you saying no.”
I tug hard against my restraints in protest, but they’re too tight. Zarine places the goblet under my forearm and the knife just below my wrist, and then presses the sharp, cold blade to my skin. There’s a sharp twinge as my flesh opens up and I scream out, “You bitch!”
As my blood trickles out and begins to fill the cup, Zarine informs me, “With the blood of an Outlier, I can create a spell which will help us defeat Ashram.”
It all comes back to the wraith knight, Ashram. As legend has it, in the last battle against Koroth, the mages used the dark arts to resurrect and army of the dead. And they appointed the recently deceased general Ashram as head of this most terribly army. After his rebirth, however, Ashram’s bloodlust knew no bounds.
Ashram burned villages to the ground, killed men, women, and children, and resurrected their corpses as to conscript into his dead army. He seemed all but unstoppable. That is, until King Pelos agreed to use the newly fashioned war machines, called Juggernauts, against Koroth.
Juggernauts were automatons of living armor powered by magic crystals mined in the mountains of Uhruhlin by the dwarves. An entire dwarf caste system, called Machiners, designed and built them. The king’s mages bound the armor to the magic crystals and they took a life of their own.
What nobody could foresee, however, was that pitting automatons against the dead only led to even greater levels of death and destruction. So much bloodshed for a war that hardly anyone knew the reasons for anymore. After a while it became apparent that the cost of the war and the toll it was taking on the realms was simply too great to sustain.
Eventually, a truce was called and Koroth, being under siege, agreed to surrender the army of dead if Valandra agreed to retire the Juggernauts. And for a time peace seemed imminent. King Pelos had united all of the realms and brought peace. Even so, Koroth refused to sign the treaty of unity, yet agreed to maintain the truce so long as Valandra ended the trade embargo put on their nation. Pelos, of course, anxious to end Valandra’s great suffering, agreed to the terms. And it seemed the newfound peace would be a lasting one.
Then the unexpected happened. King Pelos was murdered. His cousin, Lord Volgoron Dathrium, took power. Coincidentally enough, once Dathrium became the King of Valandara, Koroth suddenly agreed to unity.
Now, three years after the death of King Pelos, the army of the dead has returned. It’s hard to imagine that it’s all just one big coincidence.
My head bobs up and down, as I start to feel light headed. “I feel a little woozy,” I say, beginning to nod off.
“Stay with me,” Zarine says. She’s almost done filling the goblet with my blood. When she sees me nodding off she slaps me hard across the right cheek.
“Ow!” I say as everything coming into sharp focus along with the pain. “What was that for?”
“I need you to stay awake,” Zarine says. Finally, she finishes with the cup. Then, after placing it on the table, she grabs some ointment and bandages that she had prepared and then begins to treat my wound.
After applying the ointment, she wraps the cotton bandage around my wound and ties it off.
Before she finishes patching me up, I let my head fall limp between my shoulders and feign losing consciousness. When Zarine leans to check on me, without warning, a staggering gush of wind crashes into us both.
“What in the world…?” Zarine says, looking down at her wrists. In the blink of an eye we have switched places and now it is Zarine who is strapped to the table, not I.
Dismayed, she struggles against the restraints and asks, “But how is this possible? What sort of magic is this?”
“It’s no magic,” I answer, my words slurring. Unable to stand upright, I attempt to balance myself and catch my bearings. Confident I’ve got myself under control, I walk briskly across the room and pick up my sword which is leaning against the wall. I’ve never used the wind rush technique while drunk before. It’s made me far dizzier than expected.
“Who are you?” Zarine asks, still in disbelief as to how I could pull a fast one on her.
“So, you want to know how I defeated Ashram, right?”
“More than anything,” she hisses, grinning at me like the snake she is.
One minute I’m standing at the back of the room, then in a gush of wind, I’m suddenly standing before Zarine, my hand clutching her throat.
With her back pinned against the wall, her hand bound like mine were, I squeeze her neck tight—giving her a good scare—and answer her with my most ferocious snarl. “Let me show you.”
6
Rushing wind engulfs Zarine and me, and our hair gets caught up in the sudden gale and whips about in every direction. I unfasten her restraints as a vortex forms around us. In due course, the swirling wind grows so forceful that it picks us off the ground and transports us out of her chamber.
We fly up a flight of stairs, gliding on the air as a leaf would, and then head through a long corridor and out an open window. I hold tight to Zarine, who looks both terrified and thrilled all at the same time, and we soar across the rooftops until we alight on the platform of the bell tower halfway across the town.
Once we’re safely atop the belfry, I set Zarine down, place my hands on my knees and try to catch my breath.
Zarine walks over to the railing of the bell tower and looks down at the cityscape. “You wield great magic,” she says in amazement.
“It’s not magic,” I wheeze, trying to catch my breath. “It’s an ancient technique known only to those who know The Songs of Wind. Wind Whisperers, as we’re called, learn to use zephyrs as one of our fighting techniques. Master Kel trained me in the way of wind techniques, both offensive and defensive.”
I hear myself say his name aloud and suddenly yesterday’s events come rushing back to me. Master Kel’s death replays in my mind and I feel like falling apart all over again. I turn my head away from Zarine and wipe a single tear from my cheek. I try my best to hold back the tears as I don’t want to look weak in front of Zarine. Especially since I know she’s the type that would steal my very soul if given the chance.
“Amazing,” Zarine says, looking at me affectionately. She brushes her hair back behind her ear and bites her bottom lip. “I feel that, maybe, I underestimated you, Arianna De Amato. I’m sure my order would find good use of your abilities. As such, I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask. I’ll give her this much, she has a lot of gall. But I’m curious as to exactly what she has in mind, so I let her talk.
“Join me,” she says. Zarine extends her hand toward me and beckons me to take it. “Join me and together we will defeat this growing evil!”
I stroll up to her, swiveling my hips as seductively as I can manage, pretending to be excited by the prospect of teaming up with her. Once we’re face to face, I look into her black eyes, darker than a starless night, and reach up and caress her cheek with the back of my fingers. Her skin is smooth and soft. “Go on,” I say in a sensual whisper. “I’m listening.”
Zarine leans in, her lips practically brushing against mine as she speaks. “I want you,” she teases, “by my side. With my magic and your skills, nothing would be able to stand in our way.”
“Our way?” I ask, running my finger down Zarine’s neck, down the center of her clavicle, and then to her sternum. I let my fingers fall between the v-cut in her skin-tight dress till they rest between her dainty breasts.
She whispers excitedly to me. “Yes! Just imagine it. We save Valandra together. We will be worshipped as goddesses of the north!”
Having patiently listened to her delusions of grandeur, I smile politely and then abruptly shove her over the edge of the railing.
Zarine screams frantically as she topples over the railing of the bell tower and plunges helplessly toward the rocky ground bellow.
I rub the bandages over my wrist, and think to myself that it would serve
her well to learn not to assault a barbarian girl of the north, and just let her flatten against the cobblestone street. However, with the queen still in the dark about Zarine’s deceitful nature, I’m guessing she’d probably resent the fact I killed her lover.
Satisfied that Zarine has received the gist of my message loud and clear, I call upon the wind rush technique and throw myself over the railing. Riding on a zephyr I rush downward, the grounding racing frantically up toward me.
I catch up to Zarine mid-plummet and take her in my arms. Safe, I kick my feet downward and, in a prevailing discharge of wind, we catch on the wind, like a fluttering leaf, and float safely back down to the ground. As I hold her in my arms I can feel her heart racing frantically inside her chest.
“Put me down,” Zarine demands, her voice quivering with the rush of fear. She pushes me away and I let her have her space and time to process everything that just happened.
“I wasn’t going to let you die. I’m not like you.” I want to rub it in a little bit that I’m better than her.
“Not like me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Zarine snaps, shooting me her coldest glare.
“I’m not a two-faced witch. Is that clear enough for you, Zee?”
“Very mature,” she says, her voice like icy daggers. “And don’t call me Zee. I hate that nickname.”
Suddenly the sound of footsteps catches our ears and we turn to see the Queen’s guard march into the open courtyard in front of the cathedral. Obviously, Zarine’s screams alerted everyone in the city that danger was a foot.
The blue-and-silver-clad female legion of guards surround us and train their spears on us.
Within moments Queen Sabine appears in a flash of white and gold armor and marches urgently toward us. “Zarine? Arianna?” She calls out in confusion. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
Zarine points at me accusingly. “She attacked me!”
Sabine glares at me. “Is this true?”
