Gods of Shadow and Flame

by M. H. Johnson

  It suddenly all made sense. Of course Echobart was the first to embrace her ascension to queen of her own garden, ceding to Jess all claimance upon academy lands, he knowing the true powers and privileges of a school dean perhaps better than any other living noble. Kneeling before her as Jess prepared to embrace the magic of Primacy. Perhaps her old friend had understood what she was about to attempt better than she herself had. The dean had wanted her position to be as strong as possible, and there would be no better way to assure Ulric's ascension in the campaign to come than if he were one day crowned King of Kings by one able to perform that most ancient of ceremonies.

  In a sudden flash of insight, Jess realized that Echobart had ever been a King's Man, for all that his devotion to her was true as well. Who knew how far ahead he had seen? That one day she would be in Joshua or Ulric's arms, the path to Primacy over all of Dawn before them? Jess shuddered to think that perhaps the most masterful player of the grand game wasn't her mother after all.

  Jess's momentary awe was instantly replaced by an awful heaving in her gut, her mind snapping back to the horror of the moment as a dreadful cackle emanated from the atrium. Icy shivers raced down her spine, the hideous noise like winter's mocking whisper as deathly cold slowly sucked all one's warmth away, leaving one frozen, lifeless, and all alone in the darkness of deadly winter night.

  And then it lurched. For lurch was the only word for it, as the twisted monstrosity that had once been a man lurched out from the cover of the atrium bushes rustling urgent warning, and to Jess’s utter horror she recognized the twisted countenance.

  Hissing dark laughter, lips curved upward in a hideous grin, was none other than Captain Vardelos himself. Once handsome features now tinged a rotting green, teeth blackened by infernal taint, his rictus grew all the wider as his milky eyes fastened upon Jess, rotting arm slowly unsheathing his infernal blade, glowing a tainted crimson in the moonlit night.

  Its gurgling chortle was the sound of limbs bring shattered and a child's hopeless wail. Maggots oozed from its corrupted flesh, diseased flies dying as soon as they were exhaled pouring out of its foul mouth. "Ah. The bitch has returned. As I knew you would. Tell me, my sweet prey, are you ready to be devoured, to be consumed in endless hellfire? I have a friend anxious to meet you!" Awfully the creature opened its mouth even wider and Jess could hear the endless wails of what she realized was nothing less than the screams of Vardelos's eternally tormented soul.

  Jess felt her heart hammering, though she knew not if it was with terror or wrath. She knew only the most primal truth of any mortal battle. She must seize the Vor, and destroy her enemy utterly and completely, for there was no chance of surrender or compromise.

  With sick certainty she knew this monster wouldn't just kill her if it could. It would seek to claim her very soul.

  “Jess, by all the gods, run!”

  Joshua desperately tried to pull Jess away. Furiously she shrugged him off. “Come, Jess! We will meet up with reinforcements, and let our wizards handle this monstrosity!”

  But Jess would listen no further to her lover’s pleading words. She knew exactly what must be done and had already begun to lose herself in the black wordless fury that was mortal combat at its most primal. The terrible grin of the beast slowly approaching made it clear it understood and welcomed her intentions. And when Jess finally understood the frantic rustle of her bushes, she immediately turned around with a cry as she forcibly slammed a shocked looking Joshua to the ground, laying on top of him for but an instant before rolling off.

  “Bloody hells, Jess!” Joshua screamed in surprise and fury tinged with no small amount of terror.

  That was until he heard her curt, guttural commander’s cant, words pitched to carry in battle to elite troops and sergeants, a concise language of threat and location, instantly conveying what Jess had deduced in that deadly moment. The hideous thing that had once been Commander Vardelos had been stalling them, allowing two of its awful followers to unleash quarrels that had only at that moment twanged free of their crossbows even as Jessica had slammed Joshua to the earth and rolled away.

  Joshua blinked, quickly regaining his shaky feet as the corpses dropped their crossbows and lurched toward him, slowly unsheathing their still shiny steel blades. Former soldiers they might have been, and to her horror, Jess realized that she recognized one of them. An academy guardsman who had been a cheerful, gregarious man when Jess had last seen him alive.

  Their eyes were milky white with death, skin a rotten green, their every moment a slow stilted caricature of a living man's fluid grace, nothing like the terrible spirit inhabiting commander Vardelos's body, that infernal creature suddenly charging at Jess with a fierce roar, its blade sizzling through the air in a powerful overhand arc that Jess neatly deflected, her own blade snapping under his guard to score a quick slash to his forearms even as she step-slid away.

  "Jess, guard thyself!" Joshua screamed before he too was overwhelmed, lashing out at the slower but still deadly duo of rotting corpses striking out at that very moment for his flesh. And for all that Jess took comfort in her lover's skill as he expertly deflected the closer one's blow, his riposte thrusting deep into the creature's neck even as he darted away did little more than force the creature a single step back. Jess caught sight of the dead thing's twisted smile. Joshua's blow had been bloodless, hampering the twisted monstrosity not in the least.

  “Hack off the limbs if you can, but keep yourself safe! Thrusts are worthless, for it is already dead!” Jess screamed after jumping back from Vardelos to buy herself a moment's respite, knowing she had to focus on her own survival, allowing her beau to lead off the slower lurching things, even as she faced down the primary threat.

  Trusting her lover to survive, happy only to have saved them both from quarrels aimed at their backs, Jess's full focus now on the opponent before her, knowing that if she could not take him out, all was lost.

  "Soon I shall see you in Hell, wench, where your every scream shall abate the burning agony that is my price for failure, this cursed body my reward only should I bring you down!" The hideous thing lashed out then, a tight snapping saber cut that would have easily torn out a slower man's throat, for all that it deflected harmlessly off the flat of Jess's blade. And in that moment where her foe's saber was offline, she attacked, roaring her challenge as her longsword dipped and weave in a song as old as death itself, her lightning fast Scheitelhau slice to her foe's crown followed by a blistering series of Zwerchhau double strikes, blade flowing from vicious slash to offensive parry as she shrugged off her opponent's terrible speed even as he sought to lever his blade under her own before she darted away with a lightning fast Stechen thrust to exposed abdomen to force him back.

  Yet to her horror she saw that despite her masterful bladework and adroit parrying of his ripostes, not one of her hits had scored blood. Even when she thought she had heard the crack of her blade hammering against the side of his skull, the twisted creature only grimaced, spitting out a single rotten tooth before roaring its hate and pummeling her with a vicious series of overhand strikes and lightning fast crosscuts she needed every ounce of her intense discipline and focus to counter as she was slowly pushed back. The Vor, for the moment, was lost.

  The hideous creature once known as Vardelos took a moment to mock her, his vicious smile showing his utter contempt for the foe he faced. “Do you fear death yet, little mortal? Are you ready to join my legion, writhing and dancing in Hell’s eternal flame?”

  Jess's gaze was cold and hard, even as she backed away from the slowly approaching monstrosity, Vardelos savoring every moment he had left to taunt her before closing in for the kill. "How are you able to enter my garden? How is it that I failed to sense your malice, even while you lived, save when you met my gaze?"

  The twisted creature smirked. "How indeed? I shall allow you to ponder those very questions while I am feasting upon your soul in Hell!" Vardelos roared and charged forth once more, yet in that terrible moment
Jess was struck with a sudden dread certainty. That lock of hair the commander had been stroking between his fingers that fateful day their blades had met for the first time, his one gesture of fondness or reminiscence that made her think him not a complete monster, had not been the keepsake of a long lost love. It didn't matter that its odd silver gold hue was unlike any she had seen before, nor that it had been brittle with age. That locket of hair, Jess was horribly certain, had once been her own.

  "Jess! Recall the lich!" Twilight shouted, his voice clipped and curt. Jess shook with revelation. Of course! And that moment's distraction had almost cost her everything as the hideous thing lashed out with superhuman speed, Jess arching back desperately to avoid a terrible head cleaving slash, infernal steel all too easily able to cleave through bronze armor, Jess feared. Yet even as the revenant overcommitted, stumbling forward, Jess adroitly spun away, making use of the moment's pause as the rotting monster that had once been Inquisitor Vardelos righted itself, to do what she knew she must.

  “By my blood, I break all curses. By my blood, I sunder all wards!”

  Jess spat the words, yet they echoed oddly about the garden, as if Malek himself were saying the words right alongside her, the resonance and power of his bloodmagics flowing through her. “For blood is the reality that trumps all dreams, and so in dream and daylight, I bind my foes with the blood of my wrath!”

  With that Jess slashed open her cheeks, wetting her blade with her own blood. Immediately Jess felt the ground lurch under her feet, as if in that moment, with that one choice, the world had shaken in its axis. For a heartstopping second she was afraid dizziness and nausea had claimed her, and soon she would fall prey to the beast even at that moment rushing toward her with a hideous wail of hate.

  Yet the living corpse lurched as abruptly as she had, and even as the revenant stumbled toward her with a hideous howl, it was she who seized the Vor, simultaneously parrying his furious slash with the forte of her blade while using her longer sword and two-handed grip to effortlessly lever around his foible, lashing out for his skull even as her Absetzen technique foiled his line of attack. A perfectly timed strike, her foe's furious snarl instantly replaced by a terrible choking scream as her blood etched blade tore through his face, mouth and jaw left a shattered mess, retching out a vile spew of rotting effluvia upon the grass.

  Near instantly Jess had darted back, snapping her blade back in Ochs, yet her foe stumbled away screaming. Jess felt an intense surge of heat then, chilled but oddly not surprised to see her sword erupt in brilliant, crimson flame. Exactly where she had etched it with her blood.

  Vardelos's rotting eyes glowed with fanatic hate, his curses naught but guttural shrieks of loathing from his shattered, dripping mouth. Jess felt her heart pound in a furious mix of terror and exultation as the hideous revenant raised his infernal blade up high and with a defiant scream, charged forth once more.

  For in the moment her blade had kissed her enemy's flesh, she had felt her body drink in his power. Feeding upon it with the desperate thirst of a dying woman. Horrifying and exhilarating both. So too she had seen in that eerily frozen moment of time a latticework of crimson about the creature before her, realizing at once that what she sensed was an infernal matrix of power used to trap the poor man’s soul upon the frame of his own rotting body, both imprisoning and torturing the soul, and allowing the demon who had claimed Vardelos's body to ride him like a mount.

  Fiercely Jess grinned, sensing both that her foe was both far more terrible than she had first realized, and that her blood etched blade did more than rupture her enemy's protective wards. It had managed to pierce the veil between worlds and prick the puppetmaster himself.

  For she felt it. Felt the monster's inhuman power flow into her, and dark secrets as well. For the demon itself was but the vilest of puppets, a servant of something greater, far more terrible still.

  Her laughter was a dark thing, filled with triumph and fury. Roaring her challenge, Jess met the charging revenant blow for blow without a moment's hesitation in a blazing fast series of exchanges, fierce and deadly, near too fast for the untrained eye to see.

  “Jess!” Joshua cried out in terror for her safety even as he fought for his own life, a folly that could cost him everything. “Jess!” he screamed even as he stumbled back, frantically parrying his foe’s vicious thrusts.

  "Ware, Joshua!" Jess cried, for though she had seemed to stumble, taking a shallow cut to the thigh, it was her foe that crashed to rotting knees, screaming a horrible bloodcurdling cry as its hot steaming intestines poured from the terrible wound to its belly, even as his entrails burst to sudden white hot flame.

  "By your wounds I bind you!" Jess roared, even as her blade savagely tore through her foe's wrist, its blade flying free, and in a fit of inspiration Jess snapped off the lock of hair the creature had held so tightly to in life. Not as a keepsake, she realized, but as a talisman. Against herself.

  Her eyes blazed with fury even as the creature screamed and wept, crying tears of blood.

  And when Jess gazed at the silver gold lock of hair, holding it upright, she could see all the subtle ties, the dark enchantments laced with what she sensed on some profound level had once been a part of herself. “From dust to dust,” she whispered, gazing at that ancient keepsake with unbearable loss and anger, though she could not say why.

  For a moment the world seemed to still as Jess stared at those ancient shimmering strands, the very air seeming to hold its breath. Then the lock began to smoke under the weight of Jess's terrible gaze, bursting at last into brilliant golden flame. And like the keepsake, the revenant followed suit. "Mistress, I am yours! I beg you, release me!" the creature pled, crippled and kneeling before Jess in a twisted caricature of supplication.

  "Tremble, demon. For your trespass and treachery, for daring to enter a realm forbidden to your kind, you have given me dominion over you, and that dominion I claim! By Right of Conquest, your spirit is forfeit to me! I shall feast upon all that you ever were, or will ever be!" With the utterance of those words, the blazing lock of hair she held turned a fiery crimson. The creature before her screamed the hopeless wail of the wicked and damned, consumed in white hot flame. Even as its howl of agony became a shriek of torment, Jess thrust her smoking blade deep into its heart.

  "I claim you, demon," Jess roared, "body and soul!"

  The twisted revenant's shriek rose to a crescendo so terrible the ground itself began to shake. Some far off corner of Jess's mind sensed her lover stumble, yet the undead pair of henchmen he had been fighting for his life against were now no threat to Joshua at all. Flames roared from each of their now lifeless husks. And within moments, they were naught but puddles of white-hot ash.

  Power! Glorious fury! Jess drank deep of the demon that had dared to cross her, that had dared raise arms against her. She savored every delicious howl and choking gasp as his psyche was strangled and crushed to oblivion in the terrible grip of her indomitable will. His power, now her own. For eternity.

  Never did she recall victory tasting so sweet. Jess grinned wide with fierce exultation, gazing toward her beloved Joshua. A moment of triumph between battle brethren. Yet where she expected to see his smile of approval, perhaps even admiration, savoring their triumph as they emerged victorious from yet another brush with death, she was surprised and hurt by the grimace his smile quickly became. He gazed at her with fear. Even regret.

  Jess hissed and turned away, deeply ashamed, though she knew not why.

  “Jess, there is no time for that! Our Hound is in dire peril at this very moment!” Twilight’s tone was perilously close to panic.

  Jess shivered, suddenly terrified for her friend.

  She nodded once, shaking herself free of lingering regrets. "You are right. Our foe is dead, and I begin to remember what I am." She took a deep breath. "Come, beloved Twilight. To the maze we go." They lost no time then, Twilight adroitly leaping to his mistress's shoulder, and together they headed through the rose-la
den atrium to the entrance of the maze proper itself.

  55

  "Jess, wait up! Please!" His pleading tone surprised them both, and how Joshua regretted the horrified look he had speared her with, so savage did she look over her kill. But he knew the virtue of her heart, had been captivated by her from the moment he had laid eyes upon her at the Highrock infirmary, both a few short years and a lifetime ago.

  What did it matter if she reveled in her kills? So did all his best soldiers. For those asked to serve on the front lines who did not revel in the madness would eventually be consumed by it. Destroyed by it. Jess and her peers had been shaped and molded by the most ruthless of Erovering's tacticians, General Eloquin himself, with the intention of forging the most savage band of commanders ever to lead men into battle.

  She was exactly what Highrock had forged her to be. A tool to serve her country in the campaign to come, and one he had fallen in love with.

  He was a fool to have hurt her so, and he prayed she could forgive him. It had been, after all, a terrible night, and the thought of losing her was one he couldn't bear. Not when their sweetest dreams were finally within reach. Their greatest obstacle had been his own mercurial brother, now so very much changed since his own adventures in Faerie, somehow having become the man Joshua had always hoped he would be.

  Ulric's paranoia was gone, his passion now solely to unite the continent entire under Erovering's banner once more. He had become strangely protective of Joshua, having no memories save of their happiest moments together, and was the first to suggest that Jessica and Appolonia both would be welcomed and treasured additions to their household, the Calenbry clan entire to be welcomed into their innermost fold, all past transgressions forgiven and forgotten. For Ulric had nothing but heartfelt gratitude for the daring adventurer who had saved the realm of Faerie from dire peril.