Among Gods and Monsters

by S D Simper

  Flowridia couldn’t help but chuckle. “In the past six years? A decent amount.”

  They spoke pleasantly of politics, the state of kingdom affairs, the newly crowned queen of Staelash. “But if you’re from Staelash, why are you here? Are you a student?”

  “No.” Flowridia set aside her half-empty plate. “I’m actually their diplomat.”

  “A high position, for a child of your age.”

  “I’m older than I look.”

  When Tazel finished his plate, he gestured to the book beside her. “Why elven monsters?”

  “It’s a long story. I . . .” She offered a shrug. “Truth be told, I met one. I wanted to know what’s true and not.”

  “So there is one in particular?”

  Caught in her lie, Flowridia blushed. She offered only a nod.

  Tazel stood up, gingerly collecting his things. “There’re a few more books out there that might have what you want. I’ll be back.”

  When Tazel left, Demitri placed his head upon Flowridia’s lap. Ana bounced beside him. He’s a loony.

  Flowridia frowned at her familiar.

  But he isn’t creepy.

  Flowridia thumbed open her book to the table of contents, realizing The Endless Night was not among the alphabetized chapters. “Strange,” she muttered, then realized she had drawn attention.

  What’s strange?

  “Ayla’s name isn’t in here.” However, near the top was a different name she most certainly recognized. Flowridia frowned as she flipped the pages to the appropriate chapter.

  Bringer of War, it read, and so engrossed she was at the illustration, of Khastra as her transformed self, that she nearly shrieked when a voice said, “You’ve met the Bringer of War?”

  “Yes, actually,” Flowridia said, grateful to not have to lie. “She worked for Staelash.”

  “I’ll admit, I don’t know much of Solvira in this century. I’ve mostly studied their history as warmongers. Dragon Slayers. Witch Hunters. I’ve heard rumors their more recent monarchs have been more benevolent.”

  Flowridia had heard whispers of Solvira’s sordid history, had heard her mother speak of witch hunts, but Empress Alauriel presented nothing but the very picture of kindness. “It’s true,” she whispered. “I’ve met the empress.”

  “With the Bringer of War, they managed to conquer their impressive empire. Not that they wouldn’t have done well enough on their own, however. The Silver Fire is among the most powerful of known magics.”

  “I don’t know much about it, to be perfectly honest.”

  “The Silver Fire? It’s the capacity to absorb magical energy and release it in a pure and potent form—the Solviraes have weaponized it for destruction, but the Moon Goddess, Neoma, wielded it as a power of creation. She could create life.”

  Flowridia looked up at that, intrigued at the words. “That’s incredible.”

  “Unprecedented magic and proof of Neoma’s vast power,” Tazel replied, and with it gave a solemn nod. “They say she was more powerful than Sol Kareena—and more ruthless by far. Though, I suppose they wouldn’t teach much of that branch of history anymore, given Neoma died a thousand years ago.”

  “How did she die?”

  Tazel’s amusement shone in his smile. “They really don’t teach that anymore, do they. She was killed by the God of Death at the end of the Solviran Civil War—who, in turn, was sealed beneath the earth by Neoma’s power.”

  Recalling Casvir’s words regarding the Civil War, Flowridia asked, “The God of Death?”

  “I apologize—Neoma’s daughter, Ilune, the Great Necromancer; she was colloquially known as the God of Death. The elves have long lives and longer memories. I was told firsthand accounts of the battle as a child. Scars of it still ravage the world, and apparently there are godly artifacts lost within the realm to this day.”

  Intrigued at the words, Flowridia nearly asked more, when a sentence at the bottom of the page stole her focus: As a daughter of Ku’Shya, she remains a foe of Izthuni and his manifest form in the mortal realm (see: chapter 13: Scourge of the Sun Elves).

  “‘Scourge of the Sun Elves?’” she said, distaste coating her tongue at the words. She began flipping to the chapter.

  “Now, there’s a legend,” Tazel said, having settled across from her. “They use her Solviran title as the book’s name, but the Scourge and The Endless Night are the same. The dwarven populace had their own name for her—Gaping Maw.”

  “That’s ghastly,” Flowridia said, and within her stomach, dread welled.

  “Since they seem to be using technical titles, I’m surprised they didn’t use her true name.”

  “Ayla Darkleaf?”

  Tazel frowned—not at the book, but at her. “Well learned, indeed, to know that name.”

  “I also met her,” Flowridia said, assuming it couldn’t be so damning to admit as much.

  But Tazel’s gasp said otherwise. Green eyes growing wide, he said, “By Sol Kareena’s Light, she’s back . . .” He placed a hand to his forehead, all color vanishing from his features.

  “No, no. She’s not. Ayla is dead.” It burned her to say it, but Tazel finally breathed again.

  Though he did remain stiff. “You’re sure?”

  “I watched her die,” she said, hoping her fear masked the pain in the statement.

  “And you’ve burned her? Scattered the ashes across the world?”

  Flowridia shook her head.

  “Then she might as well be sleeping.”

  When he moved to set aside the book, Flowridia shook her head. “Her body is in the possession of Casvir,” she said, panicked. “He’ll take care of it.”

  He slowly turned his head around to face Flowridia, gaze narrowing. “Imperator Casvir of Nox’Kartha, the most feared necromancer on the planet, has the body of Ayla Darkleaf?”

  “He’s the one who brought her back, five years ago. And I know what you must be thinking,” she said, holding out a hand to calm him. “But he doesn’t want her back.”

  Tazel remained tense. “And he’ll properly dispose of her?”

  Flowridia realized she couldn’t summon the will to lie, so she settled on nodding. “But she was the Nox’Karthan diplomat,” she added quickly. “She and I often met.” Her breath hitched. “She was dear to me.”

  The fear in his eyes didn’t fade, but any anger melted into sympathy. “You don’t know anything about her, do you?”

  Something about the question lacerated her wounded heart. It must have bled into her words. “I know much more than I think I wish to.”

  In gentle motions, Tazel stole the book from her grip. She let him, confused at the gesture. “Perhaps,” he whispered, paternal in his tenderness, “it is best to let Ayla Darkleaf’s history die with her. She was a friend to you, as you said. Don’t tarnish your memories with this.”

  “She wasn’t my—” Flowridia bit back her words, clenching her fists. “I’ve seen awful things. I want to understand.”

  Tazel, with care, returned the book to her lap, his eyes broken even as he smiled. “Flowridia, no one understood her. Not in a thousand years.”

  Limbs shaking, Flowridia opened the book to the ominous chapter and found her prize, that of Ayla’s name in beautiful script. A pencil drawing, crosshatched and shadowed, showed a shadowy silhouette. Small and lithe, Flowridia knew that form, but a shudder filled her at the next drawing—elongated and monstrous, The Endless Night.

  A clinical sort of writing met her view:

  Among every race, there is the creature that causes the bump in the night. The Celestials speak of ‘The Shadow,’ and dwarves, ‘The Gaping Maw.’ Among human kingdoms, it is ‘The Endless Night,” but only the elves knew her true name: Ayla Darkleaf, Scourge of the Sun Elves.

  The details of her death remain unknown. But she rose as the first vampiric creature, then set up residence in the mountains of Kaas for nearly a thousand years, where she began her plague upon the Sun Elves. Known for her charm and ge
nius, Darkleaf performed dark experimentation on stolen participants, often children, the remains of whom were commonly found without skin—

  “Flowridia?”

  Gasping, Flowridia looked up, realizing her eyes welled with tears.

  “I did find other books on elven monsters,” he said softly, “and a few translations. But are you all right?”

  Her hands balled into fists, nails digging into her skin. “I won’t pretend to know the legacy she left across the sea, but I know what I saw beneath the castle. And it was so utterly sickening—”

  Her resolve cracked. Tears would come if she spoke another word of it. Flowridia stole Ana into her arms and held the book with the other as she stood up. “It wasn’t the woman I knew.”

  Yet, wasn’t it? This woman who had gleefully slaughtered the cavern of dwarves, had spared no innocents and decimated the Skalmites? Who had murdered an envoy from the Theocracy when they insulted her pride? Ayla had sworn to tear her apart; Flowridia had been spared because of her naïve, open heart. Ayla had been a woman of violence and fury, of genius and lust . . .

  She heard Tazel say, “I’m sorry.”

  Still, her mind refused to process any of it, the damning knowledge swirling, never settling.

  “I realize she was your friend.”

  “We weren’t—!” Flowridia stopped as tears welled in her eyes. Bracing herself, she released a breath, then sniffed back the threatened sorrow. “Ayla and I weren’t friends. We were never friends; we were. . .” Her grip on Ana tightened. Her softened in defeat. “I loved her. I apologize—”

  “Flowridia,” Tazel said softly, his interruption as gentle as the breeze at night, “sometimes the people who claim to love us most have their own motives. She wasn’t capable of love.”

  But Ayla had loved. Ayla had been loved. Casvir said she had changed.

  Unwilling to risk crying, Flowridia stepped toward the door, Demitri following beside her. She gripped the book, her fingers turning white.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Flowridia stopped in the doorway. “It’s a tender wound.”

  “Perhaps I’m wrong,” he said, at which point Flowridia turned around. Tazel’s apologetic gaze had not diminished, yet a certain wariness had come to join it. “Perhaps, instead, you are more than you seem.”

  Flowridia leaned against the doorframe. “I don’t feel like much, lately.” She smiled at him, tears flowing quietly. “Thank you for your help.”

  “It’s rare to find pleasant company. Find me anytime.” He gestured to the books on elven translations. “I’m always happy to help with study.”

  She forced a smile and left him alone, purging any deeper thoughts from her mind.

  * * *

  “Scourge of the what now?”

  She sat in her new guest room, detached from the world beyond. Through her tears, Flowridia told Etolié the entire tale—of the labyrinth and all its horrors, of the research she’d found, even the strange elven man in the library. With Demitri curled around her, her face puffy and raw, she said, “It’s all true, Etolié. Everything I saw. She had done it for a thousand years, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “First of all, you should go learn Elven from Tazer.”

  “Tazel . . ?”

  “Look, Flowers, not many elves are willing to teach outsiders authentic syntax. It might give you a way to keep your mind off everything.”

  “Etolié, that’s not—” Her words caught in her throat, and behind her cries, she heard Etolié’s gentle, ‘Shh . . .’ from the mirror. “I love Ayla,” she managed to say.

  “And you’re allowed to still love her, Flowers, even if the rest of us don’t understand it.” The Celestial watched with alert, bloodshot eyes behind the mirror. “I’ve never understood romance, but I’ve watched it enough to know it’s complicated.”

  Flowridia simply continued sobbing.

  “Listen, let me know if I’m stepping on toes, but you’ve been out camping with Tyrant Deathless for, what, a month? You need to give yourself time to mourn. This kind of information would rip open anyone’s old wounds, but I’m not convinced yours ever healed at all.”

  Mourning precluded Ayla was never coming back. Insidious waves of doubt crept into Flowridia’s broken heart. She forced a smile. “Am I allowed to call the kettle black?”

  Etolié smiled with gaunt cheeks and tired eyes, no joy in the gesture. “You’re the one having a breakdown, not me.”

  Flowridia wiped the tears from her eyes, sniffing as she said, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. I’m busy. If you want a subject change, I did some research on the Sha’Demoni situation.”

  “Please.”

  “The empress sent over some books, and I found a few things that might interest you.” Etolié’s face disappeared. Flowridia heard rustling paper. “Four arms and kinda spider-y, right?”

  Recalling the demon, Flowridia said, “That’s correct.”

  Etolié held a book up to the mirror. “Familiar?”

  It was, and Flowridia’s eyes widened as she took in the drawing of a four-armed demon woman with a spider’s lower half, deathly thin with braided hair nearly to the floor. “That’s her.”

  She heard Etolié laugh from behind the book. “Oh, Flowers, Flowers . . . You’re so fucked.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sorry, laughter is a well-documented stress response.” Etolié’s face reappeared, and Flowridia saw her nervously smile behind her fit of giggles. “She’s known as ‘The Coming Dawn.’ No one knows much about her, only that she worked with a vampire hunter known as ‘Dark Slayer’ to bring about the end of The Endless Night some four hundred years ago or so. Technically, she’s an elven hero.”

  So this was a deep history. Flowridia felt her blood run cold. The books didn’t know much . . . but a certain half-demon in the castle had unparalleled knowledge.

  “The Nox’Karthan library might know more,” Flowridia said, though her breath caught in her throat at her own plot. “Etolié, I have to go.”

  “Flowers, tell Casvir. Tell him I’ll send all my research because this is a very real threat to you and your well-being.”

  “Etolié, I really—”

  “Better yet—I’ll just pop over and deliver it myself.”

  “No, Etolié. I’ll be fine.”

  “Will you? You were just crying your eyes out over your dead monster’s murder spree.”

  Flowridia said nothing, merely looked away as she settled her thoughts. “We’ll talk later,” she finally whispered.

  This time, Etolié let her go.

  Khastra would know more than clinical history books. Perhaps she already knew of the war. Surely Casvir had said something. Perhaps this had all been settled without Flowridia’s knowledge.

  But she had to know.

  In her search, Flowridia was told by a servant to seek the general in her private bath, and when she asked where that was, apparently Khastra had stolen and claimed it from Murishani. “Look in his domain.”

  The stairs to the library headed downward, but farther still, Murishani’s domain also lay beneath the earth. Flowridia kept a hand on the wall, wary of labyrinths, but soon the stairs ended, and she was presented with a long hallway.

  Lavish carpet cushioned her feet. Emblems of gold plated the sconces on the wall, subtle signs of finery otherwise unseen in the palace. Murishani’s realm was beautiful, regal. Even the light shined brighter here.

  Doors lined the hallway, but ahead lay an enormous archway, twenty feet tall at least. Beyond, all the light faded, lit only by scattered candelabras upon the walls.

  Magic radiated from it, churning Flowridia’s stomach. She held Ana in her arms, grateful the rambunctious critter had quieted down. Demitri, however, sniffed the air. I don’t like it here.

  “We just need to find Khastra,” she said. Every step forward led to the ominous structure, but several doors lay to the sides. “Do you smell her?”

&nb
sp; Demitri placed his nose to the ground. I might, actually. There aren’t so many dead things down here.

  Demitri led them to a door near the base of the staircases, well away from the ominous arch. Here?

  Flowridia knocked, and to her surprise, it was answered.

  A De’Sindai servant girl met her gaze—Flowridia’s age at most, perhaps younger, but with her pink-hued skin and horns, Flowridia realized she had no actual way to gauge her age. “Can I help you, Lady Flowridia?”

  The girl didn’t seem nervous. Merely startled. “Do you know where I might find General Khastra?”

  “She’s in her bath. I will ask if she’ll see you.”

  “I can wait—” The door shut.

  Flowridia looked back to Demitri, smiling briefly until she stared again at the dark hallway. “Do you smell anything there?”

  Whatever the spell is, it’s masking my senses.

  The door opened again, and the servant girl beckoned for them to follow.

  The ground became stone. Flowridia set Ana down. Moist air enveloped her skin, the lights steadily dimmed, and the unmistakable scent of sage reached Flowridia’s nose. Prickling memories of long ago brought the knowledge of plants and their properties; sage was a remedy for fear, to steady your heart and calm your breathing.

  The girl led her around a turn. Flowridia saw her quarry.

  Candles lit the room, casting eerie shadows across the damp walls, yet the ambience remained soothing. Centered was an enormous bronze tub, nearly as wide as Flowridia was tall. Khastra sat straight with her back to Flowridia, arms set on the curvature of the edge like a throne, the light reflecting the impressive muscles of her back and shoulders, cast in varying shades of blue and shining silver.

  Two bars of metal ran parallel down her back, the skin around them red and raw. Her back had been broken. Flowridia realized that the torture she had seen was, perhaps, a drop in a bucket.

  Two De’Sindai women stood behind her, plating her wet locks of hair into a single, thick braid. Flowridia had never realized how long it was; perhaps longer than she was tall. She noted that the two servants bore hair and braids in equally impressive styles and lengths, though neither stood taller than Flowridia.