Cassandra Pendragon
“What do you mean, nightmarish? I wouldn’t tell it to her face, but I think she looks rather adorable.” I said and turned towards the fey, finally fully dressed.
She hesitated to answer, twiddling the seed in her hands for a few moments before she offered it to me. “I’m hardly surprised to hear you say that, since it was your magic that created her as she is now. But trust me, to a sensitive mage who wasn’t born among the stars, she’s terrifying. I was nearly blinded when I saw her for the first time. It’s like… you took a piece of the sun and compressed it into her fragile form. Now its power is leaking out left and right but it’s still only a fraction of what lies underneath… and that’s outright scary. You know, I always thought that I had an immensely bad day when I tangled with someone as powerful as Shafeer but by now I’m rather convinced that it could’ve been much worse. Against him, I at least managed to put up a fight. Spiders, fallen gods, immortals…” a shudder ran down her spine. “Maybe the world in my gem wasn’t so bad after all.”
She seemed truly afraid, much more like a little girl than the powerful, slightly crazed sorceress I had come to know. When I took the seed from her, I protectively pulled her closer, into my arms.
“You don’t mean that. It’s not going to be like this forever. Even after the darkest night, the dawn will come. We’ll get through this, together.”
She fell against me and I thought I felt her tremble for a moment before she relaxed. “Not for everyone, it doesn’t,” she whispered.
“No, not for everyone.” I thought for a moment before I added quietly: “this isn’t about the fallen dwarfs, or our struggles, is it? What happened?” She stiffened and her arms became painfully tight around my middle. “They’re gone, Cassy, all of them. I tried contacting my family… my children. There’s nothing left, nobody answered my call. I don’t know what happened to them over the years I was gone, but this…” she sniffled. Damn it, I hadn’t even known she was a mother. She had never told me and I had never asked. I had just assumed… but now that I thought about it, she had had her own realm, and probably an heir or an heiress. And they would’ve been in the way of anyone who wanted to take over. I knew she had lost her kingdom but I would never have imagined what that actually meant.
“I’m so sorry.” There wasn’t much more I could say, everything else would have sounded like a mockery, I couldn’t even begin to understand how she must have felt. All I could do was hold her while hot tears ran down her cheeks and she mourned for those she had lost. I couldn’t help her, I couldn’t make it better, if they were gone… but what if they weren’t? She had said that she hadn’t received an answer, that didn’t necessarily mean they were dead as her own experience in Shafeer’s hoard proved. Could I say that? What if I reignited her hope only to have it extinguished moments later? That would have been more than cruel. But then again, she had come to me, and I would’ve bet that this was precisely why, not to talk about my brother but about her family.
“Erya, do you want me to find out what happened to them?” She didn’t reply but I felt her nod. Screw this, even a false hope would be better than none.
“Maybe it’s a little early for your tears.” I pushed her to arm’s length and caressingly brushed away the streaks of moisture on her cheeks. “I have an idea. Come with me, let’s see how brilliant that demon truly is.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her along, resolved to at least give her some closure if nothing else.
There were still a handful of dwarfs outside the smithy, but they didn’t stop us nor did they try to chat. I was tremendously grateful that I didn’t have to wiggle out of a bunch of highly inappropriate conversations and headed directly for the forest. With a thought I pushed enough energy towards my ears that I could hear the murmuring echo of every conversation in camp, the soft beats of tiny wings as butterflies circled around the flowers further away, the tripping of paws under the canopy and the distant rumbling of long lost languages somewhere to the north. Relieved that I had found him so quickly, I released the magic, the short moment had already been enough to drive a burning wedge of pain through my skull, my mind unable to cope with the myriad of impressions that had assaulted me for the fraction of a second. My vision swam and I had to struggle to remain on my feet, swaying from left to right. I ground my teeth and inhaled deeply as the waves of agony gradually turned into a migraine. That, I could deal with.
“… alright?” Erya was tugging at my hand. “What did you do?”
“Found Mephisto,” I groaned. “And overestimated my resilience. No matter, I’m fine. Come on.”
We hurried on, past the outer lines of the camp and across the wetlands. When we reached the edge of the forest I slowed down and again enhanced my hearing, more carefully this time.
He wasn’t far away, just on the other side of a small spring, where the forest was still full of light and not yet as foreboding as it was around the ruins of the tomb and towards the hills. I couldn’t hear anything threatening either, the larger animals had probably already fled from whatever Mephisto was doing and the small ones stayed well hidden, only the faint tripping of tiny paws in the underbrush revealed their presence to my heightened senses. “This way,” I said and pulled Erya further towards the demon and what I hoped would turn out to be a spark of hope instead of desperation.
“Tell me about them, your children. What are they like? And how many are there?” I heard her snivel again, but her voice remained firm when she answered.
“I have two sons and a daughter, Gawain, Lancelot and the little Guinevere. Beautiful creatures, all of them and a royal pain in the ass. Young fey are… wild, no don’t laugh, they’re much worse than me. We don’t develop or grow up the same way humanoids do. It’s more of an… evolution and it takes quite some time until we even realise that we aren’t alone in the world. For a young fey, there is just magic and instincts. We don’t even have a fixed, physical body until we mature. Our whims and desire shape and change what and who we are. Just imagine: me without any from of self restraint and more than enough magic to make most of my wishes come true. Having them around was challenging and exhausting but not nearly as bad as missing them every single day I was imprisoned. We don’t usually form families, like I said, we don’t grow up, we evolve, and the younglings are more often than not left to fend for themselves but I couldn’t do it… I think I loved them, even back then, and I wasn’t prepared to allow nature to run its course. I taught them, I hugged them when they burned their fingers and I scolded them when they went too far.” Her voice became distant as if she was living through the memories she was sharing with me.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
“I didn’t realise it back then, but I was happy. It’s true what they say, you know: you can only ever appreciate the things you have lost. I would never have imagined how much it hurt when I knew that yet another decade had passed while I sat in my gem and could only picture what they must look like now, if they found another place… or if they died when my realm was taken... over the years I managed to bury the memory of them deep down but when… but now, that I’m starting to live again, to feel, to love and hate…” Her voice broke. I immediately stopped and hugged her again, inadequate as it felt, but I simply didn’t know what else I could do.
“Why haven’t you told me before,” I asked quietly. “We could have done something much sooner.”
“When? When we fought an ancient dragon, fled form the emperor or when you suddenly disappeared and we had to face remnants of a long forgotten age? No… it is what it is but, I can’t pretend anymore, I have to know.” She pushed me back and continued on our path, the flow of energy from where Mephisto was working easily within the range of her senses. I stared after her, a million questions fluttering through my mind, but none of them mattered. She was suffering, alone, and she had been for a long time. I felt unbelievably sorry for her but all I could do was hope with her and, if we got the chance, help her bring them back. And so help me, if they were still alive, no matter what stood in the way, I would make sure she’d have the chance to see her kids again. And if they weren’t… the gods might have mercy on the poor soul who was responsible, but I wasn’t going to. If, once again, all I could be was an angel of vengeance, I’d gladly play my role. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered after her retreating back and hurried to catch up with her.
It didn’t take us more than 5 minutes to make our way across a small, gushing creek and towards a huge tree I didn’t recognise. It was large enough to crowd out the adjacent plants and occupy a clearing all by itself, a silent, venerable, ancient king of the forest, at the roots of which Mephisto was…I didn’t have the faintest idea of what he was doing.
I saw the jewel, we had banished Shassa into, the last remaining statuette, several complicated looking sigils and formations on the ground and a variety of different herbs, all placed around the enormous trunk of the tree, which was wide enough that I wouldn’t have been able to encompass it with my wings. On top of that, he had carved a handful of runes into the bark, each of them glowed faintly in the greenish light under the canopy. Yellow, purple, blue and golden shimmers surrounded them, a supernatural display of light that made me feel like I had stumbled upon an enchanted clearing, where druids would assemble to worship nature and life. It wasn’t even that far off the truth, except for the druids and the benevolent part of the magic, since I assumed he wasn’t exactly trying to coax plants into blooming early or bless people with fertility. At least I hoped so.
He must have realised that he wasn’t alone anymore but he didn’t look up when we stepped from the tree line and into his little sanctuary of magic and lost arts. Instead he carefully finished another rune, using the ignited end of his staff as a chisel. It was the very same one I had seen him carry when we first had met, but this time, arcane energies were swirling along the unicorn’s horn and down the length of the carved wood. Crackling it flowed into the ancient tree and marked it with yet another glyph.
When he was done, he straightened and turned around, his smouldering, red eyes filled with a fire I hadn’t seen before. The crown of horns around his head shimmered with the same intensity, black and red sparks dancing along the curved ebony like fireflies above a pitch black pond. Instinctively I took a step forward to get between him and Erya, my wings manifesting with the whisper of aeons torn asunder while a wave of icy fear raced through me. The fires of hell were again raging within him, suffocating everything that came too close, and I didn’t know, if I was still facing someone I considered a friend or something else entirely.
“Mephisto?” I quietly asked while Erya pressed herself against my back, she had felt the change in him as well.
“The one and only. You can put these away,” he said and blinked, the unholy inferno in his eyes disappeared. “I’m still myself. You have nothing to worry about. But with the delightful support of your new spider pet and her artefact, I managed to access some of my caches. I still don’t have a core but if push comes to shove, I can squeeze a drop of hell itself from my old bones.” He shrugged and the oppressive aura that had permeated this place vanished. I took a deep breath but I didn’t retract my wings, the strangling force I had just felt still much too vivid in my mind.
“Now then, did you just come to stare at me in all my glory or is there a reason why you’re here? If you want me to be your bridesmaid, it’s going to cost you and I don’t do pink,” he added with a smirk and a glance at my bracelet.
“If we ever get around to having a wedding, I’m not going to scare everyone away. Consequentially, I’m not even sure if you’re invited. What in hell did you just do?”
“Hell, ah home sweet home, and mostly the answer to your question. I fused a drop of power, I had stored away for bad times, with this wonky construction I’m currently living in. You just saw the echoes of the transfer, nothing sinister, well, not more sinister than I usually am. So… are you going to tell me what you want or do I have to guess?” I wasn’t sure, if his explanation served to soothe my worries or exacerbate them, but I had known all along that he wasn’t all about sunshine and rainbows. I had just never seen him like this before, a demon through and through. Hesitantly I allowed my wings to fade away, but my resolve to not distrust my friends was being pushed to the limits today. Without Erya’s massage I wouldn’t have been able to let it go.
“Several things, actually, but the most important: can you help us find… Erya’s closest living relatives? I’ve already seen that some spells can make use of blood to connect family members, could you do something similar?”
“Sure, it’s not that difficult, as your fey knows. Which means she has tried and failed, which in turn means whoever you are looking for is either protected from scrying… or dead. Let me think… are you willing to bleed for this, Cassandra?”
“You mean literally, right? Of course. How much do you need?”
“Enough for a couple of runes. I could probably also make do without your blood but it’ll be much easier with a reagent that protects my spells from any foreign magic. But I don’t think she should be here for this,” he added with a nod in Erya’s direction.
“Why?!” She demanded to know as she stepped around me. “It’s my family we are talking about, dimwit, why shouldn’t I be here?” At least she wasn’t subdued and quiet anymore.
“Because I’m going to power a scrying spell with sparks of transcendent energy from a source that can’t be changed or impeded. It will show us what we want to know, all of it. Are you sure you’re prepared for that? Think carefully before you answer, fey. Also, if you should try to alter or mess with my magic, you’re going to burn to a crisp before either of us could help you” If he hadn’t been right, I would have slapped him, right then and there. I couldn’t imagine a more blunt way of saying: whoever you are looking for might only still exist in bits and pieces, and you’re not strong enough to help, at any rate. Are you sure you want to hang around and see that? Or maybe that was simply his form of revenge for Erya calling him a dimwit.
“Get on with it,” she replied. “Whatever we’ll see, I want to know, I have to know. Everything is better than uncertainty.” I imagined that she had aimed for sounding resolved and brusque but frankly, neither of us bought it. Her voice was just a tad too tremulous and I had to swallow down the impulse to hug her again. She just seemed so… vulnerable, that I wanted to protect her.
“Huh, must be someone truly special to you. Alright, I need some blood from both of you and a few minutes. The runes shouldn’t be difficult to draw out and I’ve already put down wards in this area. I’ve got a knife somewhere over there,” he pointed in the direction of the roots were I had seen most of his herbs. “Empty out three of those vials in your basket. I need two of them filled with Cassy’s blood and one with yours. Then we’ll see what has happened to your family, for better or for worse.”