Aramil's Scrolls

Firewyrm

2011-04-06T12:50:00.000-07:00

Moonlight shone on the street’s cobblestones. Above, on the rooftops, strange shapes danced, as white clouds traveled across the night sky. The girl was huddled to her long cloak, and held it tightly, walking as fast as she could, through the shadows of the empty streets.

Another shadow followed her closely rooftop to rooftop, with small golden glowing eyes like spirit lanterns.

An open window fluttered and hit the stone wall, making the girl jump. From somewhere, a haunting tune, echoed through the empty city. The girl kept on walking, and her shadow, kept on jumping without a sound. Even though it was early in the night still, the streets were all empty. Not a person walked, no one except the mysterious girl, no shopkeepers on a shady night market, no harlots or thieves, no mothers chasing children to tuck them in. Not a soul. And yet the haunting tune kept on coming, in perfect harmony with the wind that seemed to mourn like a woman.

B thought about lighting a fire, but eventually decided it was not time to make her move yet. Soon, they would start making their moves by the hundreds, and she would only have time for one. She had to choose carefully. She heard bones rattle from an alley to her right, but didn’t even look. She heard moaning behind her, but kept up the pace. Strange lights played were before had been only shadows, and the sound of fire, but no warmth or light came from the abandoned buildings.

“Keep on moving,” she heard Aaheru whisper in her mind. “They are disorganized still…do not be afraid.” Damn cat she thought! Keep on moving, he said, but she could feel the spirits almost caressing her neck with their cold touch. She didn’t even look behind her though. As if he had heard her, she felt him descend from the roof, like a small black angel and move to the street behind her. She breathed easier now, that she had him watch her back. He hadn’t heard him of course. There was a deeper link between them a deeper connection between master and familiar, that let them know where each other was. And it was a good thing, because Aaheru was almost impossible to spot had he not wished to, especially in the darkness, especially with his black fur making him a little less than a shade.

“It was about time you showed up, horror lord” the girl whispered under her breath. “keep moving…” answered the feline in her mind. And he sounded calm and cold. He had done this, thousands of times. B did not answer. She just ducked her head and kept on walking as if it mattered who would see her. Behind her, a small black cat stood in the middle of the empty street, as spirits and undead came at him from every corner.

B did as she was told, yet could not resist the temptation of looking back at her tutor, as he waited to hold off the inevitable assault of the undead. The small black cat stood firm and looked at the tormented spirits as they came towards him, moaning in unhallowed anguish. Then, Aaheru moved, and his moves seemed too fast for the eye to trace, as he drew a circle on the dust and dirt, that littered the ancient city’s street. After that, he kept on drawing, sitting in the middle of the circle, magic symbols, runes and small hieroglyphics, depicting birds, cats, the eye of the gods, and other, more complicated and incomprehensible to the one not acquainted with the art.

But Aaheru knew what he was doing, and so was B. There was no reason for her to dally anymore, and no reason at all to see that thing, whatever it was that Aaheru did again. One was too much. She turned her head around and started running. The faster she reached her goal the better. A strong gust of wind almost took her cloak revealing her fire-red hair, and two cold blue eyes, shining like moonlit mountain lakes beneath the curls that fell on her face.

A strong gust of wind that blew towards her, and made her feel like a great void had been torn in the fabric of reality, a cold and dark void between real and unreal, that searched for something to fill it, and on its search sucked like a vortex anything, including air.

And soon all was silent.

She didn’t look behind her, as she had nightmares about certain spells that Aaheru could cast. It seemed to her that sometimes it was a completely different creature, one that could crave warm milk and just sleep in her lap, and others, when his eyes glowed coldly, a hunter, that would chase the restless ones and grant them release, whether they wanted it or not.

“You will be safe for a while,” she heard the feline’s voice in her mind. “Go on now, and perform your duties.”

She nodded yes, unsure if the cat could see her. Still, Aaheru had done his duty as a guardian of the gateways, and so should she. Now it was the time for judgment. The great shape appeared thumping heavy monstrous feet and lumbering like a drunken giant. And at a giant’s size was it, but in no way so orderly. It appeared as if plague, death and decay had made their lair in this one, this hulking monstrosity that came at her waving a huge rusted scythe leaving maggots and rotting flesh along its way.

It was not one creature though, rather a mix of creatures, animal and human, and reached over two meters in height. Different kind of tissues had been stitched together, to create every limb and the body of the undead abomination, making it look like a nightmarish puzzle, a parody and blasphemy of every form of life on the world, so grotesque that the pieces were impossible to recognize.

B stopped in her tracks. The girl whispered some words, and her hands begun to glow. Soon the glow turned into flame, and her hands seemed to be on fire. But she was not burning. Instead a cold smile spread across her beautiful face. She straightened her arms in front of her as if she was stretching, and uttered the command word. The stream of flame that erupted drilled a hole to the creature’s centre, but didn’t slow it down at all. Actually the monster now seemed more enraged, roaring, and striding towards her, with large, rotten legs, made of a multitude of legs held together by rusty chains and stitches and dark magic.

But B did not flinch, and did not back down one step. She kept on streaming fire from her open arms, burning stitches and filling the ghost city with the smell of burning, rotting meat. She directed the beam lower then, and it cut through the monster like one of those swords of the far east. One of the creature’s legs disintegrated finally in a ball of purple flame, as the sorceress put more effort to her spell, finally making ti lose its balance, and fall. The combined effect of the damage the spell had caused along with the fall resulted in the enchantment weaved upon it being broken, and the monster appeared finally for what it really was. Parts of dead beings horribly desecrated to create an undead weapon.

The sorceress’ breast rose and fell fast, as she breathed heavily. The creature’s head had stopped just a few inches of her feet and stared at her with a glass eye. She kicked it hard.

“We are just beginning.” She thought. The creature was old and powerful and it hadn’t spent its years simply chasing and slaying people. Creatures like this, would enhance their knowledge through studies in arcane, forgotten libraries, and sought to rise in power by creating armies, of nightmarish undead. “They are everywhere.” She heard Aaheru’s voice in her head, but didn’t need him to tell her. With a roar that almost split the ground in two, they appeared, creatures stitched of rotting parting parts of other creatures, some larger than the one she had destroyed before.

If one could see the scene from above, they would be petrified by the sheer number of the creatures, as they came out of the nightmarish dungeons in which they had been created, like warrior ants leaving their underground lair in order to defend it. The creature, thought B, must have been eluding them for centuries, in order to have time to mass such an army. This, was more than an undead raiding force. The monsters were so many, they could take on the army of a small city-state and prevail, in which case they would double their numbers to say the least. B smiled as she saw they were not attacking, but instead waiting, and moving aside, for the larger of their number to come forth like commanders in an army. A quick look around her, showed her that there was no way out. She was completely surrounded, by walls of rotten flesh, bone and rusty steel. She saw the cat’s golden eyes looking at her from a roof like two golden fireflies. “Be careful horror-lord” she thought to herself. They creatures made no move to attack her. Their lord, B knew, would like to have a talk with her personally.

As if it had been summoned the undead master appeared in the sky, floating above the unhallowed dead like a spirit of vengeance. Its tattered robes flew like the banners of a defeated army worn and torn, yet once they had been expensive and luxurious. It wore golden jewels that sparkled with sorcerous powers. Its face, was a mask of dried-out bone, and above it a golden crown shone beneath the moon’s gaze. The empty-eye sockets of the creature held small dancing flames in the place of eyes, that indicated the presence of an intelligence, higher than that of an animated corpse, higher than that of a common man, higher than a general of war, or a charismatic leader. B knew, that he once had been an exceptional individual in life, had risen to be a lord of the undead, a defiler of the laws of the universe and nature. A lich lord.

“Intruder…” spoke the undead master, in a voice that seemed to sound like howling of the north wind. “Intruder, why do you interrupt my work? Do I seem to you, like someone who would be bothered with the likes of you?”

The sorceress smiled and drew back her hood. “My pardons lord” said the girl. “But your work…” she looked at the disgusting deformed monstrosities all around her “is finished.”

The Lich laughed, and It was cruel, cold sound, as if it remembered how to laugh but only used it, when the need in a conversation arrived.

“Far from, little girl” he hissed. “But you shall provide me with interesting components for future experiments…”

“I am here, to provide rest for your tormented spirit.” The sorceress answered all pretence of smile gone from her face.

“You speak with much arrogance for someone so young” hissed the lich like a venomous serpent trying to converse poison into words. “I run kingdoms, and was revered so long before you were even born. I led armies to wars and the skeletons of my enemies were let there to bleach beneath the blazing sun! Who are you to come and challenge me so openly?”

“I am..” said the sorceress and her hands and eyes blazed as if they had caught fire, till they resembled nothing more than pools of molten lava, and her hair seemed to turn to fire. The ground around her melted and bubbled from the heat and she became white-hot like a small blazing sun. “I am…Birgit…Enyo…Bergliot..Astarte” As her full name escaped her burning lips, it seemed she disappeared, turning into something else entirely, more like a creature of pure energy than anything else. “They call me… FIREWYRM” was the last thing she said before she vanished into the glow.

Aaheru, watched only the first stages of the transformation. He knew, that if something got caught in the explosion, would be reduced to ashes, and he had seen that before, from afar, a burning halo, spreading from the blinding spot that the sorceress was to incinerate everything in its path.

As the sorceress spoke the final word, the name she was known across the lands she had passed through, everything seemed to move slower. As the air burned, and the undead moved with big, hulky steps towards her, and she, changed and the lich just motioned for them to attack, Aaheru could see, but only as shades-only as black and white shadows of reality, as he stepped into the spirit dimension. Even in that dimension, B seemed like a beacon of energy, illuminating everything, and destroying the magical binds that animated the undead bodies like puppets.

Back in the physical world, which so wisely Aaheru had left, the halo of fire that B had created was powerful, that took the buildings of the city with it, leaving behind only the square markings of their foundations on the ground. A huge crater formed when the flame storm passed, right on the spot where the sorceress had been standing. In its centre, was the sorceress, naked and curled in an embryonic position. The last thing she managed to see, before she passed out, was that the lich was still flying above, even though its magical robes, had been burned, even though, its whole army had been reduced to black, foul-smelling remains, even though almost the entire deserted city had been completely wiped out.

Aenleth the ancient, conqueror of Asegra, Vil-tha, and Thel, had given many battles in his life. After his death, he had given quite his share of battles too, with looters and thieves, monsters and heroes, and he had won, and used his enemies’ bodies for grotesque experiments. Now however he stoop surprised as his work, his army and hideout, his entire small kingdom had been reduced to nothingness, before he had time to utter a simple spell.

But the most horrid revelation for the undead warlord, was that he, he had dominated cities and cheated death himself, he who used dead bodies, to create soldiers that would serve him better than living men could, he had barely escaped the destruction that girl wrought.

In awe and surprise he approached her, floating slowly as an angel of death from the night sky, reaching with a skeletal finger to touch her, as if to realize if all of that was true.

When it struck him. He could not move. He move, float, fly wave his arms, reach, speak, even think. He could only look, but as he came to understand, time as he realized it, seized to exist. All that existed was frozen moments succeeding each other, but not with the right speed, as if someone tried to read a book, and the words, the letters, the ink that flowed in the letters, flowed slowly, heavily, taking months to create a single letter. Beneath him however, the ground opened, and a pit, a chasm like a canyon yawned. And then the ancient lich saw them, the hands. Trying to come out, to grab him, to pull him below, to that endless pit, where the dead screamed and jackal-headed guardians pushed them in. Death was a dark and cold place Aenleth knew, even colder and darker than the existence of a lich. It was what he had been trying for years, centuries to avoid. Immortality, was what he had betrayed his fellow adventurers to obtain, and what he had bargained with demons from other words for, in the middle of dark, incent-fragranced temples, older than himself. Aenleth, remembered fear.

He had no time to wonder what had happened, he didn’t even have the physical concentration to think without a simple thought taking him a week’s heavy meditation. The old lich was just panicked.

In the air, the ancient litany of the Book of the Dead played. Slowly the ancient bones that the lich’es spirit had inhabited started to smoke, as Aaheru whispered the words in the spirit realm. Malignant specters appeared and vanished again, and it even seemed that the small feline’s form changed. “You are not going anywhere.” Said Aaheru,invisible now “not until I’m done with you.”

But it was difficult to tie such an ancient and powerful spirit to the powers of the underworld. For every time they pulled the lich in, there was a time he pulled out, for its spirit body was still capable of resisting.

Aaheru’s purpose was not to destroy the Lich however. No one could do that at the current moment, not even by completely destroying his physical form. The spell, that bound him to undeath was incredibly powerful and soon it would be free, in another form, somewhere else.

Thus, Aaheru released the caged time. In the spirit world, Aaheru was not even a feline. If someone could actually see with mortal eyes in the twilight realm, he would see the lich trapped in a huge cloud of darkness, one would feel the “Horror Lord” seeking into his soul, because there, in that parallel to reality world, he was powerful. For a moment that was what the lich saw, but to him, any site seemed better than the pit awaiting for him below. At that time, Aaheru, considered it time to end the spell. The caged time was released, and stroke back at the lich like a whip. It did not hurt him, rather only his physical form, and destroyed it. Aaheru counted on the fact that he wouldn’t fight back. His exit, was his destroyed body. Soon he would return to his phylactery, and find another corpse nearby to posses.

The liche’s laughter echoed through the night. “You have failed!” it screamed triumphantly. “You cannot destroy that which is eternal! I shall return and bring chaos and destruction for I have an eternity to wait!”

Too late, the bodiless spirit realized that what it was in, was not even the real world. Feeling the huge energy emanating from him Aenleth looked behind him and saw him, a huge warrior, greater than a giant with golden shiny eyes, even though the rest of him was made of pure darkness. Then, the caged time, came back again. Only now it was coming at him a thousand times faster and a million times stronger, like a hurricane of raw energy. If spirits could scream, then Aenleth would.

“Aaheru?”

The young sorceress woke up and looked sround her, and the first thing she saw was the moon above. She looked round her and saw the small cat looking at her.

“What happened?” asked the girl, and a nod of the small feline head was the cat’s answer.

Next to him, a small black box, almost invisible due to the mysterious material it had been deisgned of, waited for her. She reached for it, but Aaheru’s voice echoed in her mind a strict command that made her freeze. “DON’T.”

She looked at him, almost insulted, and he explained. “The box contains the lich’es soul, like its phylactery. However, the box itself is made of crystallized time. Touch it, and grow older by ten years. Or a hundred.”

“…then…how…?”

“there are spare gloves as well as any kind of clothe in the backpack. Wear these.”

She did. She got dressed and together they took the way back. They had to go to the elders to find a way to destroy the lich’es soul, or at least, to find a way to keep him imprisoned more than Aaheru’s unstable spell would allow.

“Wasn’t there a city here?” B asked casually as they were leaving the ruined wasteland.

“Showoff” the cat answered in her mind.

B chuckled a little. “Tell me was it spectacular? I mean from a third person’s view…was it like....”

“It was horrifying.” The small feline answered in her mind. “ I feel lucky to be alive after that…you are careless…and…and…”

She was looking at him wide eyed.

“Fine. It was like the sun itself had crushed upon the earth…”

“with?” asked she.

“…with all of his wrath and beauty” answered Aaheru disturbed.

She picked him up and squeezed him like a kitten, with a huge victorious smile on her face. The way back, would be long, Aaheru thought.

The first moon: The moon of betrayal

2011-03-15T17:00:00.001-07:00

The first moon: The moon of betrayal

And the snow fell. The moon was a blade of silver on the night sky, just a small curved line drawn on the black, which now lit all that blood. Now, that all the fires had been put out and the stars were nowhere to be seen as if they had hid not to see the stage, and only the moon stood in her place, newborn as well, shining on the snow, reflecting on the blood, as if the whole world was made of silver and crimson.

There was also black though.

She walked across the street of the small village, with an insane smile carved across her alabaster face, without showing any signs of feeling the cold, even though her black dress was the only thing she wore. The curves of her young body were drawn beneath it and she finally felt without any guilt that she was desirable, very very desirable. Blood dripped from her fingernails and her lips but that didn’t matter much. The whole village was drenched in blood, the walls of the houses were painted red and the ground was covered in red mud. But new snow was falling.

And Antelia was laughing. She was laughing because she was right, in the end she had been proven right even though none had believed her. There was an angel , an angel of her own and he had come for her. She stopped and looked at the night sky. The snowflakes were falling, thousands of small white kisses of a black cloud to the red body of snow beneath her. She swirled along with them, laughing like a little girl…and why not? She asked herself. She was barely older than a girl, a young woman, almost a teenager, with the tenderness of her age stolen, now cruel and cold like marble, beautiful and threatening like the clouded skies, above.

Things were not always like this. Sixteen winters ago Antelia was the newborn sixth daughter, the last child one of the lords of this mountainous region whose main occupation was war. Antelia didn’t remember much of her father. She had never really come to know him. She remembered him more like a picture, a picture of a man who left her mother’s bed just before dawn broke, and rode, as she and her siblings, watched him , to the troops waiting to lead them to battle. And simply, one day he didn’t return. Neither he, nor her brothers. Maybe that was why her mother wandered lost, like a mad woman murmuring prayers like all that country in which while the men fought amongst them had been surrendered to the wolves of the cloth. Those, who did not have to fight, those who were free to sell false hope to the people, those who had fallen to the depths of depravity and now laughed, on those who softly sent off to the other world. However, concerning Antelia, loss, was no excuse. No excuse for her treasonous mother who had delivered her to their arms without even looking back once. No excuse no hesitation, no remorse.

Given the mental state of her mother the girl had grown in a deeply religious environment. She could remember the statues and images in the temples, those perfect, wonderful forms with the ideal bodies and unearthly features, filled with peace and beauty and above everything, the shapes of angels.

Those who were pictured perfect, to yield flaming greatswords with great eagle-like wings spread to crush the evil that always fell before them, defeated in the form of a slain dragon or demon. Those were the male angels. She also remembered the female ones, which seemed to her creatures dreamed of. They looked like women but their great wings were always folded over a suffering body, and the wounded warrior was the most common motif. They were there to heal to comfort and relieve of wounds and weariness. This was the society into which Antelia grew. Men fought, and women prayed and tended to the wounded. The only ones with a long-term profit were the priests. That was the world that she loved as a child: away from cruel and cold reality, the heavenly world of angels and celestial creatures. She was just a little girl who loved the angels. A child who had been taught that earthly passions were a sin, and she had to hide and detest her own body. A child who adored the angel, those passionless forms, so perfect and beautiful, so fake, and yet to her…so desirable.

Years passed and the grew to a young woman. She didn’t have the female angels’ wonderful blonde hair although she dreamed of being like them as she was growing up, hers was black like the night above the world when the clouds hide the moon and the stars, like her eyes two lakes for enchanting sirens to bathe in. Antelia didn’t look like an angel but she was beautiful, very beautiful, and she had started to notice it herself on the looks of others, on the looks of boys that lingered a little longer upon the curves of her body.

She started too, to harbor such thoughts, and hated herself for them-for this corruption as she called it. She was certain that angels, entertained no such thoughts.

And the days passed. More than once she had been seen in the temple of light, by the village’s curious eyes, to sit on the feet of some angel’s statue and daydream, daydream nonstop as curious whispers that she didn’t hear spread.

Snow fell outside the castle, and covered the world below. No fires were visible, from her window. But in her room, as the last pieces of coal burned low Antelia fell another fire building low in her belly. The dream was so vivid, that she could still feel it. She could still feel the male angel’s strong hands caressing her, while she herself caressed the wonderful female angel’s curves herself, and tasted truly heavenly pleasures.

Those cold, small hours, the only thing that sound be heard above the world was the snow falling on the rooftops, on the streets and over the far forest. Even perhaps the song of the wolves, making peasants and lords wrap themselves tighter to their blankets when everything fell silent. Yet, one of those nights, that she jumped up from sleep hot and wet after a dream wilder than the others, it seemed to her that the moaning of the dream had come to life. Still, those were not the voices of the angels that had joined her in heavenly torture.

As she soon found out these wear human moans coming from her mother, and a man, a lean, old man, as she saw from the door’s opening. The last thing she saw was the hieratic uniform thrown casually on the floor, the last thing before she fell asleep again the moonlight.

Slowly, the snow stopped and the moon bathed the world under its cold light. Antelia thought with a smile that the angels should fly on moon beams. Then her eyelids grew too heavy for her, and she lost herself on wet dreams till the first light of dawn.

With the image of her mother being mounted by the priest she wandered in the village the next day. Having now realized the hypocrisy of teachers and teachings she looked at the world with different eyes. There she found what she had been looking for. She had seen him before, looking at her like enchanted as she passed by, but she had always avoided his stare. He was a handsome boy about her age, (sixteen or so) perhaps a little younger he, and already he had begun to look like a man. He spent the summers working in the fields and the winter he used to help with whatever he was needed, mostly cutting wood to support his family. He was much inferior to her of course, and she was the daughter of a lord, that was what she had been taught. Well…she thought with an ironic smile, she had been taught a lot of things. She gave him a smile full of promise and his heart fluttered, but it almost stopped entirely when she went to him.

She had taken him by noon. In the end it was nothing special. Nothing like what it would had been with an angel, which of course he wasn’t. And of course the news for the two of them in the old barn spread quickly. The news became rumours, the rumous were discussed extensively and through the filthy mouths of priests and old wives those became terrible whispering campaigns of a witch who would seduce the virtuous young men of the village, a heretic which would lead them to hell. None spoke openly of course, but everyone knew it was about her. Everyone, including her. She didn’t care of course. They were stupid, inferior, a bunch of scared animals, peasants only worth of how much they could produce for the lords. For the lady, she silently reminded herself. She was now, the only heir to her family’s fortune, land and castle. Still, things were not going to be so simple.

Months passed. Her young lover was taken away, at the order of his family and the church to serve in some fortress of the clergy. Little she cared. During the day she luxuriated in old forbidden tomes of her family, while her nights, she reserved for the angels that visited her in her dreams.

Unfortunately this time of bliss was about to come to an end. In the absence of a Lord to rule the province, the priests easily manipulated the population through the power of fear. And at Antelia’s territory, one of the worst had come. A rabid dog, who howled as if he had been kicked, spitting as he spoke, watering his greasy beard, and stunk of filth and sweat beneath his woolen coats. He started to preach every day against her, and against her mother, managing to slowly turn the villagers against the witch as they called her.

And when the raging mob reached the castle gates, the only thing her mother could think was to slap her hard across the face for the mess she had brought her in.

“Look what you have done!” she screamed “We are going to lose everything!”

Antelia watched as her mother started to run half-crazed through the old castle’s hallway. “You will repent!” her mother finally told her, as if she had found the solution. “You will beg the church for forgiveness, and everything will be alright…you will be imprisoned for a while in a monastery somewhere of course but…”

She turned furious at her mother at that but she didn’t have time to say much. Something hit her in the back of her neck and she blacked out. She could not remember much of what happened later. The mob took her and delivered her to the priests. Then the people left the castle since they had taken what they wanted. Everyone was happy. The castle had been saved, and her mother was unharmed. She remembered waking up in a dark room she couldn’t recognize, and the moonlight crept through the window. She remembered seeing religious books next to her. She tried to open the door but it was locked. She heard laughter of women and a man’s voice. In a while she heard keys turn and a woman opened the door.

“Awake at last?” she asked with scorn “There are books of the faith over there.” She said pointing at the books next to her bed, so different from the one in the castle. The woman added something else but Antelia didn’t listen. She was now fully aware of her situation. She had been trapped so easily. She would never leave this place, and her idiotic mother would leave Her fortune to the church, content to leave her daughter to the care of the church. Her lover would see to that.

She wondered for how long they had been planning that.

“Father Ir will later come to speak with you, if you want to make a confession…” This woke her up. She attacked the door, but she was a moment late and the heavy oaken wood kept her away from the nun. She started pacing up and down the cell like mad. She didn’t even look at the moon shining above, neither she heard the wolves howling away. She only listened to her heart beating a terrified rhythm, like a trapped animal’s. She finally, was overcome by exhaustion and fell asleep without realizing it.

Father Ir, didn’t even have the courtesy of waking her up. She woke up from her hand trying to muffle her, and of course of the terrible bodily odor of his pressing against her. The girl opened her eyes and tried to scream but the only thing she managed was to growl. Not that it mattered much. She was a heretic, a witch and her word would be against that of a priest. His other hand grabbed her breast. She felt shame and rage and scratched him deep across the face. He once more proved his valor, hitting her with the back of his hand.

“Filthy witch!” He screamed at her and she realized that his breath was even worse. “You will regret this you who…” his words were cut abruptly as she spat him on the face. He looked at her with the eyes of a rabid animal but at least Antelia thought, she had shut him up.

“Get up and go to your nuns, you dog!” she screamed at him and for moment it seemed that he would do it, so fierce the girl was. However and since she was only a girl, he managed to hold to his nerve and stayed. He fell on her with all his weight, and tried to hold her hands down with his. Unfortunately for him he was drunk on holy wine, and the kick in the crotch caught him off guard and made him curl like a beaten dog. He tried to grab her again but this time, Antelia was prepared. Her hand went to his face aiming straight for his eye. The eyeball rolled through blood to the cold floor and father Ir screamed. After that she attacked him again like a furious banshee, scratching at his face going for the other eye. It didn’t take long, before she crushed them both beneath her foot. Leaving the blood-soaked blind priest behind, Antelia started to leave when she remembered the insult that she had suffered.

She, whom normal folk didn’t dare to cross eyes with had almost been used by a filthy drunk. She wouldn’t have this. She started strangling him and at the same time digging through the fat of his neck with her nails. She welcomed the feeling as she stabbed him. Finally it became apparent she wouldn’t have to strangle him. She pulled her out, and father Ir tried to scream but couldn’t do much. After a while he stopped moving entirely.

They found her, a little while later, drenched in his blood, trying in vain to find an exit from that place.

“FOR THE INDISPUTABLE AND PROVEN CRIME OF THE MURDER OF REVERENT FATHER IR…”

The herald was shouting. The mob was shouting. The holy executioner was silent. The whip went up and down relentlessly. Antelia tried not to scream.

“FOR THE SIN OF WITCHCRAFT…”

The whip kept rising and falling.

“…OF CORRUPTION…”

More strikes of the whip.

“…OF DEMON WORSHIPPING”

Now her blood drenched the cold stone prison floor. Every drop could be attributed to a fall of the whip. The herald took his eyes from the gathered mob and turned it to the window of her torture chamber.

“ANTELIA RELIKAI YOU ARE HEREBY SENTENCED TO DEATH, INSIDE YOUR CELL IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE GOOD PEOPLE FROM YOUR EVIL MAGIC”

The whip hit again, and for the first time she broke. She screamed. She no longer could hold her tears. Everyone wanted her dead. She was completely alone. And the whip stopped. They took her broken body and chained her to the wheel they had made. They tied her to the wheel and laughed when she moaned in pain. A feminine young man, a pupil of father Ir, hit her in the face. Behind the gathered representatives of the clergy a window showed outside to the cold, dim day, the snow that slowly started to fall, slowly at first, but soon became a storm. They put her on the wheel, with growls and curses, but she didn’t speak a word. Her whole body was in pain, her whole existence suffered and she just wished that It would be over soon. She started crying, a suffering sixteen year old girl, and they started to talk of tears of redemption, and discussed if her soul could finally be saved. She didn’t even have the strength to spit on them as she had done with the other. Then the wheel started to turn and the pain came. She tried to weep but even sobbing hurt as the wheel was crushing her bones. And in her final moment of sanity, it seemed to her unbelievable. Unbelievable, that everyone had abandoned her, astonishing that no one would help her, incredible that her own mother had done nothing..not even that boy…and no angel…How was it even possible that an angel would let something like that happen?

And that was what hurt her the most, more than the wheel, more than the knowledge of her impending demise, more than the humiliation of torture, and her burning tears.

And for a anguishing moment she was her again, that little girl that loved the angels, that girl that had grown up at the feet of statues, without any friends since everyone was inferior to her, that girl who now was alone, and missed the nights, when they took her on their wings even if that was just a dream. That moment, when her sanity collapsed, was when she found which betrayal hurt her the most, and as she lay dying she found the strength to look in the blizzard outside and scream through bloody lips:

“WHERE ARE YOU? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?”

And for the first time, something, seemed to have heard her.

The blizzard’s song changed. It seemed to all present that through the wrath of the wind they could hear wolves howling…but of course, that was impossible. It was the wind. It had to be the wind.

They would die with that thought.

The figure that rose behind them seemed huge. No features could be distinct but two burning crimson eyes, even though it had the general shape of a man. He entered as mist, and simply materialized behind them without any sound. They felt his presence when the holy symbols they wore melted leaving deep burn marks on their skin. Two were cut in half before they could utter a word, while one’s chest exploded to the indifferent gesture of the creature. Father Ir’s student tried to leave, but in his panic he stumbled. He tried to rise, and as he did, his eyes fell on that storm-spawned nightmare. Antelia did the same unable to believe her eyes.

There he stood, a young man of devine beauty, although his eyes shone crimson, and his long hair were silver-not grey or white but silver like a blade, silver like a moonbeam. He was huge, very much larger than a normal man.

“Back!” Screamed the other “Stay back demon!” The creature crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat. He smiled as he grabbed him , he smiled as he spoke.

“I am no Demon” he whispered in his low, hypnotic voice. He sounded like an angel that would whisper her in her dreams. “I am Endymion.”

He then drunk his blood. He kept drinking, even after he was completely dry, like a century old paper. Then he tossed the body aside, and it was crushed, and shattered like a dry leaf. Then he forgot about him.

He went to her.

He released her from her shackles and took her in his arms. He felt her breathing become faster as he touched her. She was trying to say something.

“Hush” he whispered. “Speak not.” He added in his strange archaic accent. “It will hurt you.”

Now her tears flowed freely. She looked at him through her bruised face and wondered how anyone could be so beautiful. She tried, to raise her broken arm to caress his hair but she couldn’t. Endymion took it and kissed it.

“Are…you…an…angel?”

He leaned towards her and touched her with his lips. Her skin was burning. His was cold as the earth. She didn’t care. She was lost in his eyes.

“Not any angel” he whispered smiling softly. And gently added: “I am your angel.”

It seemed to her the blizzard howled like a wolf.

But that was impossible.

Her mother died a little while later. Antelia held her while the beasts she had called from the mountains ripped her body to pieces. The woman screamed, but hadn’t given an answer to her question yet.

“Why did you betray me mother?” she had asked. She didn’t wait for an answer of course. There was no answer. Antelia screamed the question once again, but simply laughed when she saw her mother was no more in condition to answer any question, justified or not.

The castle was hers by right. She kept on terrorizing the province throughout the coming years. As Endymion had said, she killed a few so she wouldn’t have to travel far to feed.

“where are you going?” she asked. Her wounds had all healed since she drunk his blood. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long! Take me with you!”

Endymion smiled. “The time is not right yet. You will come to me.” He caressed her face and kissed her lips softly. Antelia felt the earth move beneath her feet. “The children of the night will help you.”

“I’ll wait for you, when the time comes. My little girl.”

He turned his back to her, and became one with the storm, and he was gone.

Three years passed. Never before she had seen such a storm. She could hear the wind screaming like a wolf. And she laughed merrily, for the time for her to leave had come. No longer would she need of the cattle.

Midnight come, not a soul was left on the village.

The blizzard had silenced, but it would start over, to cover the red with fresh snow again.

Somewhere near, a small girl who loved the angels, swirled and laughed at the dance of the snowflakes.

She had heard the call. Far away, across white-gowned forests, the first moon, was showing the way.

Children of the moon pt1

2011-03-14T13:39:00.001-07:00

Prologue

The garden was a beautiful, a perfect, heavenly place fitting a dream. The moonlight beams, silver and bright would come piercing the treetops, playing upon flowers strange, in patterns that no human artist could ever even dream to picture. Hidden somewhere a silver waterfall would send a shiny river to run through the dream garden singing a sad song about eternal love. Between the song and the moonbeams, lives and dreams long gone would pass, floating pictures, through the waters of the river. In the wind little creatures like small lanters with many colors would play. They would chase each other like children the strange creatures, hiding between the flowers’ petals and laughed as they dived in the cold waters, laughed like children in mother Selune’s embrace like so long ago. Suddenly they saw her. A beautiful fairy, tall and fair like a woman, resting in a bed of red roses, and her long hair a second, silent river of the night caressing the fragrant flowers.

They started to wander around her face, wandering what dreams would hide behind these silent eyelids of this naiad, a dream herself, in a dream trapped. Her eyes even closed would dominate her beautiful face with their exotic beauty. And as the little spirits would play and fly above her, a sigh came from her cherry –painted lips, the same as a drop of blood from her finger pierced by a rose’s thorn.

Slowly, it seemed that she would wake. She stirred her big, light blue butterfly wings, and raised her body to the moonlight. She looked around her the marvelous garden. A soft, light breeze came, and brought the smell of distant nightflowers, making purple bells to shudder under its touch. Her eyes drifted in the picture around her.

Every color, every shape of flower that had ever existed looked as if it had gathered in the garden around her, while in the tree branches shone fruits of all forms ripe and tender ready to be cut. She didn’t even notice the little wound in her finger that had painted with crimson drops the leaves.

“Where am I?” she asked herself and anyone else who could hear “this is nor the crimson canyon neither any place else of those I know in this world…”

“You are in a dream silly” replied a little spirit , giggling , right before vanishing , flying with its brothers and sisters among flowers in tall branches where the moon could see them.

The fairy smiled. It must be a dream she thought and a good one too since she wasn’t afraid at all , even thought she was in a strange place all alone. She started then to walk into this dream-garden, crossing leaves and places where many flowers would bloom together filling the air with their intoxicating smell.

She lifted her eyes. For the first time she noticed the moon. Selune ruled above creation these dark hours, sending rivers of silver light which passed through the blossoms, through the flesh reaching for the soul itself. She saw that moon, that magnificent fullmoon that she knew was real and for the first time she started to doubt whether it was a dream or not.

Somewhere far, in the darkness of night she heard the river’s song and even if she didn’t exactly knew what it’s sad words meant, she decided to move on, enchanted, puzzled by it.

Finally she saw it : Through the branches and the leaves she could make the sight of that weird stream, child of the moon and the river, shining through the night, binding worlds beyond the frozen stars, carrying dreams and wishes long lost.

On its shore he was standing, and some times he would look at the water and he would dip his fingers inside causing waves when like a child he tried to catch the pictures that would appea,r but finally grabbing only water which slipped through his fists.

Other times he was standing tall, proud, looking at the moon as if trying to defy Selune’s rule with his dark glance.

His was a statuesque body, like carved on marble and his hair, long and wild like waves of faraway stormy seas touched his waist. He had great wings were obviously larger than hers but quite different, his being black and strong like a dragons’. Contrary to her fragile ones his seemed able to take him flying through thunderstorms and falling hail.

The fairy hid in the bushes and waited. She prayed that his face was also beautiful.

The stranger ducked and looked at the river. He caught water and threw it on his face with disappointment. One of the little spirits startled the fairy. The stranger turned his face like a scared animal that hunters have trapped and for the first time after millenniums outnumbered he was astounded. Those eyes….The fairy also knew that no prayer could ever give so much beauty to any face. He was like a god. Perfect.

“I’m sorry” she said and blushed “I-i didn’t mean to scare you.”

It was the first time that he was speechless. It was the first time that felt something stir in his breast and was scared. But fear or not he knew he would go on.

“You didn’t.” said he and smiled which caused her to blush even more. “It’s me who should apologize. I shouldn’t be here. I just came to take a look at the river. I’ll leave now.”

He turned to leave and she panicked. When his face left her sight she was so scared that she couldn’t see him that she wanted to leap up and grab him. Instead she only had time to shout :

“Wait!!”

That was enough to seal her fate. They spent the night together of course and they made love in that dream garden with the playful spirits all around them like tiny cupids and the river song which seemed to drift away into the night to escort vows and kisses.

She was lying next to him when she whispered:

“It’s dawning anytime now…What we’ll do then?”

He shook his head without looking at her. “The day never comes my love. Time does not pass” he added caressing her chic. “It is a dream. Remember?”

The young fairy all but cried. “I’m so afraid to wake up…I don’t want to lose you.”

The demon wondered for the first time what was keeping him. The trap was set, and she had been caught. He had won. And for the first time he realized that he was more afraid than her, afraid that he would never see these eyes again , he would never againg hear her voice.

He looked at her and he felt that pain in his chest once more, that horrible pain as if something had been planted inside him, as if something living stirred inside him. Yet his sense of self-preservation prevailed for a while and he managed to make it shut up, just for a while just to give him time to stand up.

“I have to leave” he said with a trembling voice for the first time “I have to leave”

She stood up behind him as if to prevent him but stopped. Without looking at her he heard her breathing in the brink of weeping. Yet she didn’t cry.

“I understand” she said.

He turned and stared at her so surprised, so crushed, and she smiled, with a sad smile and her eyes shone and it was if she really understood and more. As if she was forgiving.

He took a step towards the flame gate and his feet had iron balls tied to them. Every step was torment. One more, and inside his heart hell raged much more fiercely than it was beyond than portal.

“I understand” said she and small rivers run across her face. “But I’ll be waiting for you to return.”

He clenched his fist sharp nails drove into his flesh cutting him and blood spilled to the dark earth. But he managed to take another step.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Forever if I have to.”

And that was the only thing that it took to seal his fate too.

He turned his face and looked at her and the moon had taken them both. The moon that played upon the bodies, the moon that dived into dreams, and could not be controlled by gods or demons, fairies or humans, embraced them and made them hers.

“I will return” He said just before entering the gate of fire and they both knew he told the truth.

-----------------------------------------------

Beyond the portal hell itself yawned.

It was a horrible, grotesque, scenery in which rivers of blood and flame rolled between hills of skulls and in which the souls of the damned screamed in pain and anguish for the rest of eternity. Above all, a huge pyramid loomed over all like a small mountain. Demons in curious shapes and forms disgusting, flew and crawled everywhere in the horrible landscape. Inside the pyramid a throne of bones stuck together with blood and dripping venom wrapped in so much darkness that would make starless nights seem bright, surrounded by magic symbols.

He kneeled when he passed the flame.

“It all happened as you commanded my lord. The gate….”

“Ssssplendid” came the answer from the darkness before him. “Perfect you are for thesssse bussinesssesss. Great sssssshame your failure would be.” A hissing voice like a curse by itself.

“Sssstill…”

In ages past it would have been impossible for him to be ambushed. In ages past it would have been impossible for the shadow to creep behind him without been noticed. Yet now his heart bit fast and was the first to be nailed by the poisoned blade. He fell in the burning ground and his blood flowed like a crimson river. He didn’t feel his wings as they ripped them from his back.

“We cannot rissssk…”

He didn’t feel the spears as they pierced his flesh.

“our little plan…”

He didn’t feel the thunder burn his body and soul.

“to be known.”

The only thing he felt was a tear burning his cheek for the first time for a little fairy that would wait for him. And he closed his eyes hoping to dream.

A knight's tale pt1

2011-03-14T13:37:00.001-07:00

Prologue

The city was shining beneath the morning sun. The tiling on the rooftops boasted red or brown, creating a cover that reached from the highest towers to the smallest houses. The pale blue sky, clear and bright with one or two passing clouds that contributed to the day’s beauty more than consisting a threat. Long, white and golden flags waved at the houses’ and the towers’ balconies and seemed to dance to the various tunes that echoed through the streets.

It was a day of celebration.

Plumed ladies of noble standing walked through the streets with their escorts, or were going about in their coaches enjoying the sight, mixing with peasants, shouting traders, and they smiled blushing, or left insulted at the song of a bard or the street poets’ rhymes. Smells of food from inside the houses and the streets, mixed with rare perfumes from the necks and bodies of the nobles. And as the day moved on, the crowd gathered as more and more people flowed to the centre of the stone square, and a celebrative rush covered everything.

Noon was approaching when they crossed the great gates and the young man waved at the guard with the stern face. Despite the kind greeting, his appearance, that of a rogue, of a wanderer didn’t inspire any trust to the gate guard who simply motioned for him to move on. A beautiful, black-haired woman followed and disarmed the young soldier by giving him her most playful smile.

The white sandals followed the boots on the stone street towards the central town square. He wore simple clothes, a pair of pants with the color of earth after the rain, and a loose shirt, dark green like moist, young leafs. His grey cloak was carelessly thrown to his back, while he also held something like a leather bag. The first thing that someone noticed on the young man was his hair, shining blond as if painted by gold, and then his eyes, small, non-human, strange, and always moving as if trying to see everything that surrounded him, as if trying to take a look at every little corner of the castle-city around him, so as to exploit every little detail of the space, to use every advantage he could find.

He looked young, early in his twenties, but those who met his stare tended to doubt that.

Because, in his eyes perhaps someone could see a passing spark, a fleeting image of all the years he had lived, of all the stories he had to say.

Yet, this spark remained hidden as he moved to the central street, covered by a shadow over his beautiful face, making most of the stares fall on the woman that came after him.

A great deal of her own beauty rested in her eyes. They were beautiful, well formed, dark eyes. And inside them, even if not so well hidden, a sweet melancholy waited making her even more attractive.

The pair walked to the middle of the square winning with each step more and more stares, as their appearance of a common vagrant couple mixed with something strange, something eerie and magical.

When they reached the centre of the square the air almost stopped. He looked around him, at those enjoying the festival, and silently met their stares. He turned then to the woman following him.

“Here?” he asked.

“It seems alright” answered she.

The young man smiled in content. He nodded at her then, as she went and leaned to a tree’s trunk, one of the old trees that shaded on the stone square. At the same time, the rogue, started to untie his leather bag. He reached inside with his thin hand and started to search. His certain look turned to an annoyed grin as it seemed that he couldn’t find what he looked for. His hand went inside till his elbow, and then all of it to his shoulder. Of the onlookers, those that watched his tries stood astonished as after his hand, his shoulder and also his head, until they heard a triumphant shout and the young man to reappear with a shining smile from inside the bag, that seemed to be barely able to contain a loaf of bread.

This time, he held something that reminded the musical instruments that almost every bard in the city used – simply reminded for this was better, much better in every aspect.

It had the general shape of a pear, and it was made of ancient, dark wood, and silver metal which seemed to flow and mix with the organ’s main body, but without any evident sign of nailing or binding. On the contrary, upon the black speaker appeared stars of silver and a stream which passed among them and shone with their light. A unicorn galloped on the back side of the handle while in the front, a dragon also completely made of silver, opened his wings under the strings, flying towards the tower and the knight on the front side of the round speaker. On the tower’s window a princess waited for her dear.

Finally, around the organ, runic letters appeared and shone like fireflies in a dark swamp, and if the bard was asked he would say that it was a simple trick of light.

The young man twisted the instrument in his hands, and caressed softly the strings with his fingers, making the instrument moan, that made everyone close to turn and look at him. He smiled sweetly at them and then tossed back his head, making, as his hair moved, his long, triangular ears visible. Only for a moment.

Then he brought his hair forth again, and turning he send a kiss with his hand to the woman that waited a little farther from him. She smiled.

Afterwards, the show begun.

The bard focused fully on the crowd. Busy, happy people, entertained themselves with the fair’s attractions and enjoyed the beautiful day. A few looked at him, but as he still hadn’t done anything to attract their attention most of them were elsewhere occupied.

A tale of war pt2

2011-03-14T13:03:00.001-07:00

2.The Night Lord

“I have repeatedly witnessed the use of the term “Aristocracy of the night”. And I can tell you this. It is utter nonsense. Among us there is no aristocracy, no leadership, no reason. We are beasts, beasts that hunt and kill in the night, monsters that would butcher without remorse even the last of our kind.

The wind comes and carries the sounds of battle. Looks like tonight we will have a gathering.”

A tale of War pt1

2011-03-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Prologue

The morning mist slowly crept through the field.

As the two armies slowly became visible to each other like ghosts in the haze, and the sound of the approaching foe came to them, a thought echoed like the roar of a raging god all above the battlefield: “I will kill today. I will gut, and I will slay, and I will bring death to him, to my enemy, just before my own blood feeds the earth.”

As if the voice had been silenced, horns sounded. The warriors’ eyes widened, trying to discern the figure of the enemy but to no avail. Hearts raced, as the call for slaughter echoed across the field.

Soon, all was madness.

A great roar rose from the warriors as they raced to meet each other in the centre of the valley. Spearmen regiments stood fast to meet the charge of lightly armed warriors, while cavalry regiments thundered against the enemy knights. A joust, in which the banners would all be the brown of mud, and the crimson of spilled blood eventually.

Untrained spearmen impaled the warriors on the tips of their weapons with closed eyes, as the blood splattered them, trying their best to stay alive. Meanwhile, the knights clashed with a sound that threatened to drop lesser warriors to their knees.

1.The Warrior

“One thousand battles I have given. I meet them there every time. Those warriors, veterans, and recruits, butchers, rapists, poets, lovers, soldiers, brigands. Different faces every time, yet the same people. Many will die today. Others, will survive and return to their homes. Their fields, their wives and children.

As I pack my sword and armor to march to war I think: I am finally going home.

The only thing I fear is the end of battle.”

Through the ranks of Spearmen he came, as if they had been there only to carry this deadly weapon to battle. A lean figure, pale like a ghost, with dark brooding eyes, darker as the shadow of his long hair fell over them. A wild, vicious joy burned now in his eyes, and a savage war cry came from his lungs. He lowered his sword at the terrified militia, crushing a man’s skull and hit again like a crazed demon laughing as the blood rained on him. Next to the knifes of the militia he was facing , his giant sword appeared even greater, a weapon that crushed bones and weapons, and dug into flesh like a razor. It was almost as tall as him, and yet he weaved it around as if it weighted a little less than a child’s wooden one.

Soon it became obvious that the scantily armored militia were being driven back and not by the valor of the spearmen. He now was covered in crimson, only his teeth appeared white as he laughed, bleeding from tens of cuts surrounded by enemies, who could not touch him as he waved a web of death around him. He soon grew bored though. He took a life with each hit and yet it wasn’t enough for him. Dark memories came to him, and savage sadism woke inside him. He started playing with his victims. He pretended to stumble, and when someone screamed : “Now is our chance!” He pretended look in horror at his would be slayer.

The man came to him with a crude sword, a little longer than a kitchen knife. Ymir, had to try to contain his laughter. As the primitive weapon came down on him, he rose and punched the man hard on the chin, enough to stammer him so as to relieve him of his weapon. The next thing the over-optimistic warrior knew was that his hand was falling to the ground.

Ymir caught him as he screamed and kept on waving his greatsword at the wall of terrified enemies, who now jumped back anxious to avoid him.

“Look at them” whispered Ymir to the warrior’s ear as he held him, his arm around his his neck in a grip the enemy could not hope to break. “You know what they fear? They fear that they might meet your fate.”

He waved his greatsword again, just to keep them at bay for a moment more, and this time he took out his opponent’s eye using his own weapon. Next came his other hand. And then his other eye. Someone came at him trying to stop him, but he was decapitated instantly. Afterwards, Ymir disemboweled his victim while he still screamed, and let him fall to the ground, slowly going for the next.

There would be no one else. They were running now no more eager to face the insane demon that came at them. He stood, and laughed madly against the bleak sky.

He didn’t even realize, how he was knocked unconscious next to the corpses of his enemies, he didn’t even realize as the world darkened around him that no one would know where he had fallen like a corpse among the corpses.