Lilith on the other hand couldn’t sleep. Despite not having rested the night before, there were too many questions racing through her mind, too much excitement and anticipation. Soon, so very soon she might find the Hellfire Naginata and bring it back home. The further they ventured through the labyrinth, the more faith she had that this was their final destination. Her blood pumped excitement through her body, and even though her friends were resting, she could barely sit still.
She would get to see Milly and Colm again, and everyone else, the pirates, the villagers, the animals. She missed them terribly, even though she denied it to herself most of the time. Everything she knew she had learned from Colm, and Milly had been her first friend. There was so much kindness to be found in the Highlands. Everywhere else there was always someone who hated someone else for some reason, the higher levels in Nenbalon hating the lower ones, or hybrids who despised humans. In the end, hate was hate, and Lilith didn’t like it. In the Highlands, everyone was welcome. Even if they had been pirates in their past.
Lilith smiled to herself. Without her new friends none of this would have been possible. She knew very well that she would not have been capable of undertaking this adventure on her own, and she was grateful that she had such experienced companions.
Lilith closed her eyes and listened to the hum. It was monotonous and never really stopped or started, but Lilith almost felt like it was calling to her. It wanted her to get closer.
It was a scary thought. She couldn’t think of any reason why it could possibly want her to come closer, unless the story was true, and it devoured its chosen victims. There was not a shadow of a doubt in her mind that the hum originated at the Hellfire Naginata. After all, if it was supposed to be sentient, why shouldn’t it be able to hum?
But then there was the question of who had set up the illusion traps. They were shocking enough to make someone’s heart stop, should they enter the tunnels unsuspectingly, at least judging by her friends’ reactions.
She also wondered who had created this labyrinth and why they had deposited the weapon here, out of all places. At the same time, she realized there was really no point in wondering but she kept marveling at the future to pass the time until her friends awoke again.
“Mr Balthasar!”
A young woman’s voice made Balthasar stop and turn. He raised an eyebrow at the young thing standing awkwardly in front of him, clearly hiding something behind her back. She wasn’t meeting his eye but instead shifted her weight constantly, looking at anything past him.
“Yah?” he asked, probably slightly more gruffly than he had intended.
“I was wondering,” the girl said, “would you happen to be going to the training site?”
Balthasar nodded and tried to hide his knowing grin.
“Dat’s right. Doin’ an inspection, ye see. Gotta make sure me guys are trainin’ yer boys right. Dun wanna ha’ dem fallin’ over n’ stuff.”
The girl nodded quickly and smiled.
“That’s what I thought. So, I was wondering…. If you could maybe give this to Ryo…?”
She produced a small basket from behind her back and Balthasar would have bet his right hand that it was filled with a lunch for his friend. With a pang of envy, he remembered the last time someone had done that for him. That was a long time past. A lot longer than he was happy to admit.
“Why dun’cha come along n’ give it to him yerself?” he suggested, not unkindly. “Oth’rwise he’ll think it’s from me, n’ we can’t be havin’ dat.”
“Oh, of course, I hadn’t thought of that! I’m so sorry. Would you mind if I accompanied you, then, Mr Balthasar?”
“Balthasar’s fine.”
They walked along together toward the clearing from which the sounds of swords clattering, grunts and shouts rang out.
“Isss thisss what the giant’ssss been teatsssssing you? What a dissssgrasssssse! You need to be fassster, more nimble, sssssee?”
That voice could only belong to the Klabautermann.
“Mate, I’m right here – I can hear you insulting me,” Ryo shouted from the other side of the clearing. Balthasar could now take in the situation completely – the Klabautermann was supervising sword fighting practice, while Ryo was dealing with the archers. One glance at the targets proved that the archers were getting better, and a look to the soldiers sparring proved that the joint efforts of Ryo, James and the Klabautermann were paying off.
“Good, then you know what you’re teatssssing them isss wrong!”
As expected, the two could not even stop arguing when training the young volunteer army.
Ryo was about to yell something else in response, but he noticed Balthasar and the girl approaching.
“Take a break,” he instructed his group before walking over to them. A big, sunny smile was already directed at the girl, who, as Balthasar noticed with amusement, was already blushing.
“How’s it lookin’?” Balthasar asked.
“Looking good,” Ryo purred, still smiling at the girl who was trembling slightly under the intensity of his gaze. Balthasar would have been worried, had her smile not been even larger than Ryo’s.
After a moment, Ryo looked up at Balthasar, grinning brightly.
“Their aim is improving all the time and the minnow is showing them how to fight while moving about. That part’s a bit tough for me at the moment.”
He laughed, stomping his wooden leg on the ground.
“I heard ssat! I’m no minnow, you sssstupid giant!”
Ryo’s grin widened a little upon his crewmate’s angry response.
“Uhm, Ryo…?” the girl drew his attention, and held up the basket. “I made you some lunch, in case you were hungry. I didn’t know what your favorite is, so I made a lot of things, so it may be a bit much. You could always share it with your friend, I mean, it’s not like you have to eat it at all, I just thought it might be helpful, since you’re always so busy, but if you don’t like it, or if you’re not hungry, you can just throw it away, so please-”
“Thank you so much, Aisling. I will cherish every bite,” Ryo cut off her babbling, gently taking the basket from her hands. “I’ll share a bit of it with the guys, if you don’t mind, they’ve all been working hard, and I’m sure that handmade food from such a lovely young lady as yourself will give them all strength and energy to continue on.”
Finally, the girl was meeting his eye and beamed back at him.
“Absolutely, I’m so glad!”
“I know, why don’t you join us for lunch?” Ryo asked, and she nodded vehemently, following him over to his group of archers. Balthasar watched them go, shaking his head. As Ryo passed by the Klabautermann, he pointed at the basket and stuck out his tongue at the little blue man, whose face took on a purple shade.
“Nothin’ out of the ord’nary here,” Balthasar sighed and turned to pay a visit to his favorite café before reporting on the situation to Colm. These men would be needed soon.
The humming still hadn’t stopped. It was almost hypnotic. Ayalon had woken up first. He hadn’t said much, just made a low rumbling sound and edged closer to Lilith. Amethyst followed shortly after.
“Are you ready to continue?” Lilith asked gently. The other two nodded silently. They had calmed down a lot, but they were still not at ease with this place. How could they be? Even Lilith would have preferred to be elsewhere, and she couldn’t even see the things they saw.
There were no more of the strange illusions. They walked on and Lilith kept expecting the humming to stop, throw the stone and hear whimpering and gasping from her friends, but the sound never ceased. At this point it had become background noise, she didn’t even notice it clearly anymore, unless she focused on it.
The temperature had risen steadily during the time they had spent in the maze. Lilith imagined a glowing core made of fire at its center, so hot, it would melt even the sun.
Then, something changed. The vibration and hum we
re suddenly pulsating, not a constant drone. Lilith stared into the tunnel. Was there another illusion? She threw the stone.
Nothing happened.
Slowly and carefully, they walked on.
“I do not think I like heat like this,” she noted at one point. Velsalia had been a different kind of warmth. Nicer, more comfortable. The other two wholeheartedly agreed with her. This heat was oppressive; it felt all the worse for the narrowness of their surroundings.
The pulsating continued. Perhaps she imagined it, but it seemed like even the glow from the ember walls was pulsing to the same rhythm, almost as if it was an organism, a heartbeat. A shiver ran down Lilith’s spine.
They took another turn and then, suddenly, they were standing before a wide hall.
The ceiling was higher up in there, and the walls formed a perfect cube. In the middle of the room, there was a pedestal made of obsidian where it perched, pointing straight up.
Lilith couldn’t breathe, it was so beautiful. She could tell that her friends felt similarly.
They had found the Hellfire Naginata.
There it stood, right in front of them. All she had to do was walk over and take the artifact into her hands and they could return home.
It stood freely, not held up by anything. The long pole seemed to be made of reddish-brown wood, ornamented with carvings filled in with bronze. Then, at the top of the staff, there were two blades, connected at the hilt and at the point. The metal was dark, but not black, and a copper line swirled through it. The edge was thin, so thin it became brighter and eventually almost invisible. An orb filled with a whirling, pearly, silver substance was inserted between the two blades so delicately that it barely seemed to touch the metal. Lilith could have sworn that it was floating at that very precise point. Just below the blade, emblazoned on the hilt, was the symbol she had seen twice before.
“Shouldn’t we… you know, get it over with?” Amethyst asked uncertainly.
Lilith closed her mouth. She hadn’t even noticed that she had opened it. He was right. It was what they were here for, after all.
The humming had ceased. The vibration was also gone, only the pulse of light remained. Lilith gulped. This was what they had come here for. She took a step forward – and then two steps back.
Right in front of her, the entire room had burst into flames. They came out of the ground, seemingly out of nowhere, and covered the entire square. Shielding her eyes from the flames, she gritted her teeth.
“So this is why they call you Hellfire,” she muttered. Together with Ayalon and Amethyst, she retreated into the previous tunnel.
“What do we do?” Amethyst asked, panicked, flapping about wildly.
“Go back?” Ayalon suggested.
Lilith closed her eyes to think. It would be so nice to have Selene with them. Selene always had a plan. She was decisive and quick in thinking up solutions for any possible conundrum. Lilith envied her friend for that ability. But Selene wasn’t here, and Lilith had to come up with something. She breathed in deeply. The air was still fresh.
She tore her eyes open.
The air was fresh.
There was no smoke or anything from the fire! But it was real; she could see it, so it couldn’t be an image conjured by magic. She looked around the corner. The fire was still raging away. She gulped.
“What are you doing?” yelled Amethyst, as she stepped out and toward the ocean of fire spreading before her. “Are you crazy? Get back here!”
Lilith extended one hand toward the fire and let the flames lick her fingers. They danced in the light to an unheard melody. They caressed her skin, embraced it, soothed it. They were like a small, gentle animal, approaching her cautiously and playing with her hand.
It didn’t burn. It wasn’t even hot. It was warm, pleasantly so, nothing like real fire. She took a look back at the raven and the dragon. She smiled one last time at them, before she stepped into the fire and walked toward the Hellfire Naginata. Her friends screeched behind her, but right now, there was something else she had to focus her attention on.
Step by step, she moved toward the podium. The fire was everywhere. It engulfed her body and yet she did not burn. Perhaps some form of magic was involved after all. She reached the podium and ascended the steps, slowly but surely. Now, she stood at arm’s length from the artifact, if she reached out, she could grab it. She could see it vibrate with anticipation.
Feeling her friends’ fearful gazes on her, Lilith hesitated.
She remembered everything anyone had told her about the weapon, and she wondered what would happen when she touched it. Once it was in her hands, there would be no turning back.
Then she noticed her hand was shaking. Her stomach was in turmoil and she was sweating, not so much from the heat, as from the ice-cold claw that seemed to have taken a hold of her heart.
Lilith gulped. Colm had said that she could probably touch it without great repercussions, that she might not die. But Colm didn’t know everything. He hadn’t known the location of the Hellfire Naginata, nor had he known Xelma would launch attack on magic users. Should she trust that his word was true, and she could master the weapon?
Her hand was hanging in the air, close enough to grab the staff, but she couldn’t move to make it happen. It was almost as if her body was rejecting her will, or perhaps her subconscious was telling her not to do it.
But they needed her, Colm, Milly, the villagers, and the pirates. They all needed her to bring back this weapon. She had been sent on this mission, and now she was so close! She couldn’t just leave it like this.
Lilith closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she gathered all her nerve and remaining willpower, and forced herself to not think about what was in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she lunged forward and took a hold of the naginata.
She had expected the world to disappear, to die, to feel something foreign rush through her veins, but nothing of the sort happened.
Slowly, Lilith opened her eyes.
In her hand was the Hellfire Naginata. It was lighter than she had expected, but still a good weight to be wielded.
Euphoria spread through her mind and body. She had done it! She had gotten the mysterious artifact she had been sent to find, and now she could return home!
As she lifted her gaze to see her friends’ looks, the pearly orb in the weapon’s blade began to shine. The fire around her rose and the blade began to hum and vibrate in her hand. The light spread quickly and grew steadily brighter. Within only a moment, the light had completely engulfed Lilith. There was nothing else, only bright silver light and the naginata in her hand. There was no sound, no heat or cold, no sensations.
Fear took a hold of Lilith once more. Was this what she had been warned about?
The silver light turned orange. Lilith wanted to cower down in a tight heap of security, but she couldn’t move. Her hand wouldn’t even obey her order to drop the weapon.
She was sitting on a throne in a wide hall, her hands covering her face in a gesture of desperation.
“Sire,” someone said. Lilith looked up. A man wearing a blue and brown uniform walked briskly into the room, his step purposeful, his expression dire. There was a crest over the door behind him in the same colors as his uniform, but Lilith didn’t recognize it. Fine wings, shaped like a butterfly’s, transparent like a dragonfly’s, extended from his shoulder blades. They fluttered lightly with each step he took. His skin and hair resembled her own in color.
He headed straight for her. What could he possibly want from her? She was rather certain she had never met him before this day.
“Sire, we are not going to be able to withstand this for much longer. The blockade is weakening. They have already broken through the first gate.”
The man spoke in a matter of fact voice, but Lilith had no idea what he was talking about. She wanted to ask, but her voice wouldn’t comply with her wishes. However, her body moved on its own, walking toward the wi
ndow front to her left, arms crossing behind her back. Lilith was sure she wasn’t initiating those movements, but nevertheless they were happening. Why did she not have control over her own body?
Her eyes grazed over the great city outside. Even from here, she could tell that there were multiple rings of city walls, each leading to a higher tier of the city. The architecture was unfamiliar, built from bright, cream-colored stone with mostly flat buildings. There were even some green spaces with luscious viridian trees between the buildings. Lilith had never seen this place before. How had she gotten here?
Then her gaze wandered beyond the city where the surrounding land was occupied by an army. There were warrior camps as far as Lilith could see. In her mind she gasped at the image. A few seconds passed before her eyes focused on the uproar that had broken out in the furthest ring of the city. She could smell smoke and hear faint screams and shouts as she saw people running, chasing, fighting for their lives. She wanted to fly down there and help these poor people, or to at least close her eyes to escape this terror, but she couldn’t do either of those things. Her body did not belong to her. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she averted her gaze and looked back at the man in uniform.
“We have lost,” she said tiredly, the voice not her own, but that of an old, defeated man. “I can no longer protect my people. I have failed them.”
The words were not her own either, but Lilith felt the emotion behind them as strongly as though they were. She understood now that this was not her reality. She was looking through somebody else’s eyes, rendering her nothing more than a viewer, not a participant. She had no influence on anything that was happening. Perhaps it was real, perhaps it was an illusion. Either way, Lilith could not interact with them.
“You mean to surrender?” the uniformed man asked. It was less of a question than a statement. His tone was drenched in resignation and grief.
“If I want to save my people at least, it is my only choice. But first, call everyone from the remaining rings to the castle. I wish to speak to them first,” Lilith said.
White Devil Page 20
