A Dyad in Time

by D. D. Prideaux

  “Something is coming.” A female voice said in a whisper.

  “On one side, The Protectorate wish to control us and keep us in the dark.” Vaughn carried on with his monologue despite the new information. “On the other side, The Shrike wishes to use us like pawns in her chess game.” He heard a thrumming noise from above, followed by a whooshing sound as something invisible landed beyond the fence, kicking up dust as it settled. “And we find ourselves here.” The thing that landed in the distance de-cloaked, revealing a ship’s hull, covered in angles and sharp edges. Evil looking. It raised itself up on its landing gears and a wicked red light shone out from its underbelly.

  “What’s a raven doing out here?” A second female voice asked. As if in reply, the red light began dropping things onto the ground, like an eagle dropping a tortoise from a great height. Little puffs of dust went up with each landing and the four black statues waited to see what would come out of the cloud. One-by-one, creatures of every shape and size began walking towards, and under, the nose of the ship on their way to their destination. Sounding them off in their heads, each member of the Venatoré named what they saw. Orcs, Elves, Trolls, Goblins, Familiars, Giants, Gremlins, Zombies, Vampires and more. All genders, all ages, and all sizes. The line of them was immense and nothing about any of them was similar, apart from thin glowing collars around their necks.

  “They’ve been slaved.” Ransom said, reaching for a small scar around his own neck. He thought about how many friends he’d lost to the burning, scything, cutting magik that severed heads and couldn’t mater his emotions. He went to intervene, but Vaughn held up his hand in a fist, signalling they shouldn’t move. He was right to do so. The dust cloud continued to be supplied as new cargo was dropped, this time they saw cages and tanks falling, that contained creatures needing a different environment or atmosphere. Mermaids floated helplessly, their own necks adorned with collars alongside countless things the group didn’t recognise. When they thought no more could come from the Raven, they saw what they thought to be extinct. A few Dwarves carried themselves proudly, arms bound in the same light as their neck. A handful of Faeries were bound to a strange, oozing creature that ambled and slunk in a fashion that made Ransom and his companions feel sick. A dragon, wings, mouth and neck restricted with the biting light that fizzed and crackled with hatred.

  “What’s going on here.” Ransom managed through gritted teeth, hating to see his kin paraded around like this. Vaughn’s fist raised a finger, asking them to be quiet and stay still. Then they saw them. Spirits trapped in tangled webs of that same, evil light as the collars. They were trying to escape, their essences vibrating and phasing in and out of sight, jarring with reality in their attempts to get away but they couldn’t. Vaughn had seen enough for now, disgusted by the torturous existence of these beings, fearful and confused.

  “If we are to be puppets, then I wish to know the show we are performing in. The Shrike told me of this place and The Protectorate has kept its secrets for too long. If she intends for us to disrupt their operation than I am happy to act as her pawn for now, but we must know what we are walking into.” Vaughn had turned to speak with his attendees directly before he was forced to sharply turn back at the sound of screams coming from the dust. Naïves were crying, stumbling and shuffling towards massive concrete doors beyond the Raven, four and seven painted on them in huge numbers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - CEILINGS

  Eve didn’t want to make a habit of waking up this way, eyes fluttering, her mind slowly trudging its way back from the depths of a forced sleep. Groaning, she looked up to see where she was, only for fear to strike at her for not immediately knowing where she was. She took a few breaths and quieted her mind, allowing her initial fear to be replaced by a calm at recognising her surroundings. The ring she touched had revealed parts of her past and she was glad it brought back familiarity with it. Not much had changed in the last few lifetimes it seemed and laying on her back, supported by a hard mattress, her heart warmed at recognising the ceiling. She had spent many hours staring up at that boring surface with her best friend discussing the world. Like children, their adult selves enjoyed the simplicity of lying down and talking. Side by side, they felt more comfortable revealing something and nothing. Joined at the hip, her and Isabella would turn over events and happenings until they fell asleep with smiles on their faces. Peaceful and content.

  She moved her head to the right, knowing what she would see, and there it was. The sister dressing table to her own, standing there with her smile on her wooden face. Stoic, inanimate twins, rare, beautiful and loved by both owners. They’d laughed when they bought them, sisters in all but blood, stroking the wood and talking of how they would stay friends forever, claiming that they would need to stay together for the sake of the dressing tables. Two hundred years wasn’t a forever, but a long enough time to make her chest swell, feeling safe and loved. On her other side, she looked out of a window to that same view that comforted them both when they needed a change from the ceiling. She stared for a while, turning over the old pages of their story as she watched the world go by, on her side. Slowly though, pain and exhaustion made their ugly presence known, a strange groan coming from her as she thought about what had happened. About, what was going to happen.

  She couldn’t move her left arm, discomforting cramps and sharp pangs reminding her she’d been in a fight. Desperate to look at the damage, Eve found she could barely lift her head, most of her left side echoing the feelings in her left arm. Frustratingly still, her groan turned into a growl of annoyance as she moved her right arm. Reaching across to touch the damage a new wave of paralysing pain ran through her like a water buffalo stampede, relentless and heavy. A second arm fell to her side, now also an immovable object in the catastrophe that was her body. Without her arms and hands, she couldn’t heal herself, besides, she wasn’t even sure she could speak. Escalating feelings followed the water buffalo, ones of loss, frustration and annoyance at being trapped in her own body. She had so much to do and less than no time to do it. She looked back at the table and saw the small box with her earrings in them, taunting her. Just reach over and touch us – we’ll tell you our secrets. Things you must know. She imagined being lifted by her right shoulder, willing her arm and the rest of her body to follow. A giant hook pulling at her and dragging her towards her memories in that box. Nothing. An unexpected feeling came from the stampede aftermath, sympathy. Sympathy for what Rosalind must have been through, trapped and helpless in her body. The irony of that introduced itself with open arms, welcoming her into an awkward and knowing embrace. What started as a growl turned into a snicker and then a chuckle, gurgling out of her like a school girl staring at a ceiling and discussing her latest crush.

  “It’s nice to hear you laugh again, Äsheen.” Eve looked to the door and saw a smiling woman. The same one who came to see her in the hospital, but this time there was no red cloak. Her dark hair fell down across the shoulders of a figure-hugging black combat suit. Odd lines and characters marked the material, a patchwork of exquisite workmanship that left nothing to the imagination and gave off a very slight shimmer. When Isabella moved to Eve’s side, the markings rippled with gold light, delicate and peaceful.

  “Isabella.” Eve gasped, crying after fully recognising the woman beside her. Countless years of emotions flowed out through her body and she felt lighter.

  “By Kai, it’s good to hear you say that.” Isabella let out, matching the tears that flowed freely from Eve’s eyes. She smiled whilst she cried, thanking all that is, and was, at finding her friend. So long they’d been separated by time and tragedy, wishing Eve had been with her through the best and worst of it. So much time had forced itself in between them. So much history had been and gone.

  “Here, drink this.” Isabella gently lifted Eve’s head, like she would a baby’s, towards the rim of a sweet-smelling cup of glowing green liquid. She drank deeply and gratefully, feeling the stampede fade into the distance and huggi
ng the painlessness as hard as she could. Slowly, defiantly, Eve began supporting her own weight, sitting up and gently swinging her legs over the edge of the bed to face Isabella.

  “Remember when you gave me this for the first time?” Isabella said cautiously, hoping all traces of Anne were gone. The moment came to Eve without pause, gracefully taking over and making the stampede a distant memory. Laughing and feeling brand new, Eve threw her arms around Isabella, both of them taking in the feelings of connection and love neither had felt since imprisoning The Thousand Curses. The stampede returned to Eve however, and she winced out of the hug, Isabella also showing pain on her face.

  “You need to take it easy for a few hours. You know how this potion works.” Some of the pain made its way into her voice and Eve frowned.

  “It’s the burns isn’t it?” Eve knew the answer, only to have it confirmed by a nod. She recognised the gold lettering that was used to treat this particular type of wound - a very advanced Bleeding Heart magik that only a few practitioners knew. She slowly looked over the suit, marvelling at the craftsmanship as Isabella filled in some of the blanks for her.

  “The fire was like nothing any of the healers I visited had seen before. Infused with some unknown element, it kept spreading, getting more and more painful as time passed.” Her expression darkened as she remembered something she didn’t want to. “This suit has stopped its progress but cannot reverse it.”

  “And the pain?”

  “Constant.” Isabella whispered.

  “How long?” Eve wanted to shoulder what her friend was explaining. She wanted to share in the burden in order to ease it.

  “Ten years. I’ve not seen my own skin in ten years.” Eve couldn’t begin to comprehend the hardship, fending off feelings of sorrow, regret and pity as she knew Isabella wouldn’t allow her those reactions. She reached forward to touch her hand and to convey all that she could with the touch and the look she gave. Both of them enjoyed the contact but conscious of each other’s pain, they pulled away gently after a moment or two. Strength returning to her, Eve began inspecting her own arm, surprised to find it wrapped in Salvésee frog skin.

  “You should have been a Bleeding Heart, Isabella.” Pride swelled in Eve as she remembered the times they shared exchanging magik secrets from each of their chosen casts. She remembered Isabella’s reaction to the frog skin when she told her of its healing properties, especially with burn wounds. A sort of grimace, mixed with curiosity at how such an ugly creature could possess such a useful and versatile salve. The little memories like that all began to crowd in on Eve and she thought about all that she had missed since her sacrifice.

  “We’ve got a few hours before I’m healed. Let’s talk.” It was like the years between them had only been minutes, the familiar to-and-fro of how they spoke to each other returning without pause or awkwardness.

  “Why didn’t you say something to me in the hospital, about who you were?” Eve started with.

  “The Protectorate are everywhere, eyes and ears in places I didn’t know could have eyes and ears. It’s oppressive and exhausting, having to watch what you say and do all the time. I had to play things by the book, I couldn’t risk them finding out who you were and besides, after what happened, I didn’t know who I was talking to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said it yourself when you told me what you and Tor were planning to do.”

  Eve’s face betrayed her heart at hearing Tor’s name, but Isabella brushed over it for now. “No one had tried what you were going to try. No one could know what would happen. Could she take over your body? Would your souls and minds become one? Would you lose yourselves to each other in the binding process?” She saw recognition in her old friend’s face, pausing to let them both think through the questions before moving on. “When I found you in the hospital, you looked like the Eve I remembered, but I sensed a different person. A different energy.”

  “You were trying to protect yourself, and your Sløv.” Eve struggled with the last word, it coming across a little more aggressively than she intended. Isabella didn’t mind, empathising with her position after finding out her friend had decided to work for the bad guys.

  “It’s okay. I know how they are thought of, but there are quite a few of them who don’t fit the mould. I deliberately chose Ludus, Pragma and Agape because they were different to the rest. Unlike the other Våpen and how they treat them, we are more like a family. They’re like my brothers, you know?” Eve nodded, remembering how they looked at each other in the hospital and seeing their relationship wasn’t like what she’d seen before. She needed to sit with the idea a little longer before talking more about it, so she tried to change the subject.

  “You say The Protectorate are everywhere, what are The Balance doing even the score?”

  Darkness spread across Isabella’s face, her body mirroring the sentiment. “After you trapped The Betrayer, The Protectorate released intel to suggest that she could’ve been stopped earlier, that we could’ve done more to prevent what she did. Lucid opinion about us changed overnight and The Nameless used it as an excuse to destroy what was left of the Sojela.”

  “What?”

  “I know. They claimed that Obed and many senior clerics knew about her experiments, her affiliation with The Barren Sun magik and her growing talents. They said that because she came from our ranks, we should be held responsible for her actions and then, all of a sudden, details about her crimes became very public knowledge. Even though she’d been stopped, they used the momentum of her damage to impose sanctions on us.” Isabella’s expression darkened further, taken to the same place of bad memories as earlier. “Even before The Last Word, we were struggling to find others who believed as we did. Balance is easy to talk about, but to fight for it? People would rather let others carry the mantle. Then, after the revelations that came out, our numbers dwindled, and believers became even rarer. In the end, we pretty much had to go into hiding.”

  “But you work for them?” Eve knew there would be a reason for the switching of sides, patiently waiting for her friend to explain.

  “Only since this.” She showed Eve her arm, covered in the black and gold material. “One of their most talented Verktøy came to me, saying she could help. For someone to come to me with the aid I needed… In the place I was in…” Isabella became lost to herself for a second. “She knew about my injuries through a man named Gerard.” She said his name wistfully, a hint of sadness mixed in too.

  “And he is?”

  “Someone I used to know.” Eve felt there was more to that story, but she also sensed now wasn’t the time to discuss it.

  “Anyway, this Verktøy, she’d been experimenting with magiks from many disciplines and cultures and offered her services.” She smiled, thinking about the kind woman who’d given her hope at relieving her suffering.

  “For a price.” Eve finished.

  “I needed to come to their side and serve.”

  Eve didn’t judge Isabella for her choice. They both knew The Protectorate histories, the secrets and unexplained spreading of their doctrine, but she couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like, to feel like you’re on fire all the time. Many things had gone on between them in the past, both said and unsaid, Isabella often the more considered and wilful of the two, but they’d always shared an understanding. A ready-made belonging to each other that helped them navigate their complicated lives and troubled world.

  Sensing Eve’s thinking, Isabella continued. “I thought I might’ve been able to do some good here, you know? Learn about the organisation, course correct where I could. Help people.” She paused.

  “What happened?”

  “Just after I was injured, The Protectorate began to close off the worlds, investing more and more in the departments, and the people, pressing for the same outcome. I’d never seen such zeal in some of the leading personnel tasked with shutting us away from the Naïve’s. Such distaste and hatred for them.”

&nbs
p; “I thought they just wanted to manage the crossing points?”

  “Not anymore. There’s been too much unrest for them to be comfortable with just managing the flow. Our conflicts were spilling into the Naïve’s world and vice versa. Dark creatures were appearing where they shouldn’t, pockets of magik were forming as sinkholes and swallowing large areas, Naïve’s wanted our magiks after witnessing what was possible. The Protectorate didn’t feel it was in the best interests of the worlds to share, so, they have a zero-tolerance policy now.”

  “They know that closing the crossing points could cause an imbalance, don’t they? We don’t know what consequences we’ll suffer should they do that.” Eve was frustrated by the short-sightedness of their actions.

  “The Nameless have been quite clear in what they want.” Isabella sounded resigned, beaten by the inevitability of it all.

  “Surelikai protect us.”

  “There’s more. One of our sectors has been attempting to create archfiends.” Eve looked at Isabella intensely then, part incredulous, part scared.

  “They’re a myth. Stories told to us as children, so that we’d behave.”

  “Apparently not. The Verktøy research department found some ancient texts with a strange symbol and the Barren Sun’s mark, detailing how they’re made.”

  “Why would they want to create such despicable and evil creatures?”

  “I’m trying to find out. As you can imagine though, an ex-Sojela isn’t exactly going to get priority access to top secret facilities.” Isabella said sarcastically trying to lighten the mood.