Is a thing terrible because of its capacity to harm, or is that terror drawn from elsewhere? A sense beyond the physical, a knowledge of something so fundamentally wrong that our mind casts it out and leaves only a hollow absence where the thing truly lies. Might such an empty pit, of such an incalculable breadth, be the bottomless feeling that comes of fear?
Do we fear the darkness because we worry something might hide within it, or do we know that it is the shadows themselves that seek to engulf us?
Metal scraped on marble as flame roared against the dark. This thing was manifested as a mound of rotten meat, but was by no nature a beast. What her spear sought was not a thousand-legged creature, as it might have seemed, but merely a thought left at the edge of a dream, dragged violently into this waking world.
It had no grasp of mortal movement. Its legs did not raise and lower to step, but the bones within crunched and deformed as to traverse the room. It did not bleed as it was cut but a measure of gaseous dread seeped from within its blackened veins and choked the breath from Ashtik’s lungs.
If taken by nature; the girl would have no chance, but ever since the first flame was lit, nature has lagged behind man. The magician had torn apart the natural forces and threaded them back together within the tip of her silvered spear. The sheen of crystal frost along its surface was not simply for show. With a thought, it became matter. A wall of black ice erected before her. It encased one of the hundred, hundred striking limbs and she tore it from the central mass that couldn’t have been its body.
She gathered some plan. This was a hunt for her, like any other. Her prey had a weakness and she needed to find it.
Its thousand flailing limbs seemed not to strike at her but out in spasms of random chaos. She could slash them down as they flung past her.
Her movements became those of a dancer rather than the huntress. She spun and flourished her spear. With the action came a path of ice and majesty, along which she twirled and battled against gravity itself.
She sought to close the distance; to find a heart to strike, to find a life to end. She came to realise that there would be none. This was not a monster; this was not a beast. It was not a bloody thing, nor some sack of simple putrid desolation. It was the sound made by a fallen tree in a vast forest, virgin to the ears of man. It was the final face we were cursed to witness before awakening from our blessedly forgotten dreams.
The tales she had been told so often as a girl. The monster under her bed, the skittering shadows that stalked her at night. She saw its hundred leering eyes, its thousand grasping hands, its insatiable need to expand; explore. She knew this... thing, was a Demon of Wonder. The aspect of curiosity - mangled and corrupted into something beyond reasoning.
It did not strike out its legs as to harm Ashtik, but simply because it sought to feel new and distant places. All the same, its legs and limbs struck out one after the other and each threatened her with a gory end.
Little remained of the knight that had borne it. She could see his flailing body beneath the infinite dread at the nexus of prongs and tendrils. What remained of his magical – steel clad – flesh had begun to tear apart as the Demon clawed its way through his being and into the material world.
She had no idea how much of it had already arrived. If what she battled so fruitlessly was the head of the horror, or but a mere fingertip. It did not matter. She would allow it no more life.
Her spear slashed so quickly it shattered the air itself and rang out a thunderous clatter. She tore the legs, the eyes, the mouths, and the mounds of bubbling flesh asunder with utter ease. She sliced as easily as though she were cutting through jellyfish by the hundreds. All in hopes of cutting out some obvious weakness - or at the least to buy time for Evara to light the sconces.
By the time she had battled and bound her way just ten meters forward, she was steeped up to her shins in bubbling pestilent fluids. Each broken bone and gaseous cut let loose a torrenting flood of ghoulish, putrid gel. With it, a stench beyond what could be made in the foulest of bogs.
It hurt worse than any strike she had ever suffered. She was part through a leap when it strangled the life from her. It was no attack to be blocked, no strike to dodge, but a sheer aura of everything dripping and gushing and pus-filled.
Ash fell to her knees - with burning tears in her eyes - within a moment of meeting the intolerable stench.
“I have to stop it,” she thought, but even her inner voice sounded breathless and ragged.
It would not take the thousand sprawling appendages, nor the rapidly growing man-like maws, to strike out and end her. It would only take one, and it offered only one.
A single stem, closer to an ivory needle than any arm she had seen on a beast, elongated through the room. It grew in the same way a fingernail might – spiralling and without goal – only much too quickly. It crossed the space at the same pace she might have walked it.
Of all things to be said, this... thing, certainly did not draw pleasure from trying to kill Ash. It barely even seemed to notice that it was about to do so. Each other limb and leg still frantically dashed themselves against the marble and granite walls in what must have been an urge to flee. Its attempt to kill Ash seemed no more intentional or conscious to the thing than the pump of Ashtik’s heart was to her own mind.
“Snowy...”
To say that dread froze her in place would be like suggesting that a layer of grit was all that kept statues from sprinting into the sunset. The impossible silence that followed such a simple word must have been the most powerful spell ever cast. That... or the bedtime tales her father had told her were true. The tales that Demons spoke with the voices of the dead.
That the Demon spoke... with her father’s voice.
“Snowy,” it croaked. The voice must have been his... almost. “Don’t... hurt... me,” it pled.
“Dad,” she whispered. It was all she could manage; it was all she could muster. It was all she needed.
The gauntlet of black, oily, vile steel moved of its own accord. She did not wrap it around the creature’s nail, nor did she move her lips as her voice forced the word.
“Sleep,” she did not say, though the word did echo through the halls and the power did seep through her outstretched hand. “Return to me,” she did not continue.
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A rainbow of flames erupted around them. Each stone-carved brazier took up their burning duties. Lights - of all flavours and warmth - flooded the granite chamber. Each hue battled for dominance, but in the end... all sank into the darkness, and all battled to cast out what lurked within.
Its flesh bubbled like a homely pot of stew. Its tentacles writhed like a lover’s first exploration. It thrashed and clawed like a little pup, learning to play with its elders.
Golden runes lit in the air around it while a band of black lightning poured from her hand. The power coiled itself around the Demon and squoze tightly enough to pop a few of its eyes.
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“Snowy,” a voice begged from within Ash’s mind. “Please...”
She wanted to scream. She wanted to lash out and slaughter the monster in cold, cold blood but her body wouldn’t let her. It kept her mind contained, and her form utterly – and deathly – still. All she was permitted was another single word, “Dream,” but again, it wasn’t her word.
The power at her hand magnified. It erupted and burst, as did the thing. From each of its almost-eyes burst a flame of black and gold. From the nexus she had imagined as a body; a flood of red liquid poured, and from each of the scars it might have called mouths poured a cloud of maggots and fluttering worms.
Then it fell silent... Utterly dormant.
“I-Is it dead?” Ash managed to ask.
“What never lived cannot die,” the magician whispered. “But even gods can... dream.”
“You’re saying it's asleep?”
“It... must be. The runes did not do this. The power to put a Demon of Wonder to sleep... The power to summon one... Who are you? The both of you?” The magician asked, her words slowed by sheer awe.
“You already know who I am. I’m the-”
“-Champion of Black, yes, yes,” the grand healer impatiently interrupted. It seemed the battle had granted her some new wrinkles to add to her inappropriately avaricious collection. “That explains nothing!”
Ash cast the old woman - and her demanding questions - aside and turned to her sister who still stood over a brazier, torch in hand. “Are you okay?” Ash asked.
“I- Ash... That voice. That was Da-”
“-That was a Demon,” Ash cut off. “Nothing more.”
“But you know the stories,” Evara insisted. “Beware, beware, the late-night song; for the Demons sing with the dead man’s tongue.”
“It's just a story, Ev. We’ll send for Dad when we get to Raven’s field. He’s fine, I promise.”
She wrapped a gentle hand around her sister’s flushed little face, but quickly pulled away when she noticed the abundance of greyish sludge in which she seemed to have bathed.
“Champion!” The healer angrily shouted. “Answer me!”
“What answers am I supposed to have?” Ash cried back, just as frustrated as the old woman.
“Do you have any idea what your sister has done?”
“Don’t blame her for this! You were meant to be her teacher. All risks are on your head!”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” the old woman shrieked. “Evara, you created a living being. That knight was alive... Such magic requires not only an extraordinary amount of power, but an equally extravagant amount of preparation. Otherwise...” The old woman flushed a hand over the sleeping monstrosity and said, much more quietly, “Otherwise, corruption takes root.”
“Why? Why did any of this happen?” Evara begged, clearly choking back a tear.
“Corruption... is the result of all magic. It matters not the scale,” Kana began, “Practiced magicians, like myself, have spent years learning to combat it. It is the first thing taught to any novice. Humans are made of meat, not magic, so we typically only have to fend off small amounts. This tends to appear like a fever - or some mild fatigue - until we build up a resistance. Creatures of magic are attacked in full force from the instant they are born. They have no way of defending themselves. If you or I cannot defend ourselves from the corruption, the magical parts of our physical forms turn sour and act as a cancer. If a creature made purely of magic cannot defend itself...” She felt no need to finish the point. A simple gesture to the foe behind her seemed to suffice.
“Then why would you not warn her against creating life when you gave her the magic?” Ash insisted.
“Would you tell a first-time archer not to shoot down the sun? Would you tell a first-time miner not to split the world in half?” Kana scoffed. “When I tell novices to make whatever they like, the talented make fireballs or snowflakes. The rest make sticks and clubs, not giant armoured - breathing - knights.”
“Is it so impossible?” Evara meekly asked.
“Ev’s always been a quick study,” Ash added.
“A quick study?” Kana cackled. “This is not... Child, to be this naturally powerful...”
It seemed a great effort went into devising some simple explanation. The old woman’s leathery face scrunched into a little old ball of contemplation.
“Powerful magicians cannot have children together,” she finally decided to say. “Not because they repulse one another, but because the child would have such a high natural capacity for magic that they would be attacked by corruption the second they are severed from their mother’s immune system. The child would die in six months at most.”
“You’re saying Ev should have died at birth?”
“I am saying that... once your natural power reaches a level greater than your natural immunity, you die. Not only must Evara have the highest natural capacity for magic I have ever seen, but she must also have the single greatest natural immunity. That is to say, yes, she should be dead.”
“But... She’s not,” Ash whispered.
“Exactly... The corruption should be eating her alive, so why isn’t it?”
It was a silent, and tense, moment before a little voice finally chirped up, “My soul. That’s why.”
“Your soul?” The old woman repeated.
“I heal. That’s my soul magic,” Ev meekly pointed out. “The corruption is eating me alive, and my soul magic is healing the damage before I can even notice.”
“But... You would have been doing that since birth. The stress of it would leave you bedridden for life,” Kana insisted.
“Which is why I was never as talented a huntress as Ash, and why I always had so much time to read,” Ev sighed as though the simple words had reframed her entire life story. “The woods, Ash. After I accidentally used all my magic on the explosion, I was able to heal Sujin with ease... It’s because when I drained my magic, I didn’t have to fight the corruption anymore. I was free to use my power.”
“Gods,” Ash gasped. “You were a sickly child, always stuck in bed. Even when you were well, you couldn’t come out on hunts. That’s why you’re so much smaller than I was at your age.”
“I’ve been dying since the day I was born,” Ev realised. “And it made me more powerful than I can handle.”
“I...” Kana stuttered. “Every breath would be a spell. Every step, an incantation. You live and breathe magic... That’s... You’re...”
“Brilliant,” Ash whispered. “Does that mean... If we can teach you to resist the corruption-”
“-A lifetime of unrivalled experience and power, unbound and untethered. She’d become the most powerful magician in history... and the sister of the Champion of War... This is not a coincidence,” Kana deduced with a measure of hesitance.
“You think this is part of the prophecy?” Ev asked.
“Steel will glance,” Kana breathily recited of the prophesy while pointedly looking into Evara’s beaming little eyes.
“What does that mean?” Ev begged. It was only as the old woman’s gaze fell from Evara towards Ash’s gauntlet that Ash realised too.
“With a healing heart and a glance of steel... shall the first Chosen of the Dreamer cast out the dark one,” Ash whispered. “It's you...”
“What’s me?”
“You are the chosen one. You’re the Chosen of Black, the real Champion,” Ash realised. “But I got in the way... I stole your destiny.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Ev protested. “You have the gauntlet; how can I be the chosen one?”
“The starlight wisp in the nameless forest. It would have hit you if I hadn’t got in the way. It would have chosen you,” Ash said. Her voice sounded awed, but her eyes were filled with utter remorse. She had stolen away the greatness that she had always known Ev was destined for.
“That’s why the white sparrow guided you to the gauntlet, while it tried desperately to escape me. Of course he’d choose you, how am I supposed to forge a global alliance? All this time, I’ve probably been holding you back.”
“Fifty-thousand years of prophecy... wasted,” Kana breathlessly realised. It was clear that the thousand shocks of the day had given up their grasp on her. All that seemed to grip her now was dread. “How is the world supposed to survive... without the chosen one?”
“I-” Ev tried to say, but raw confusion stole away the words. “No...”
“We’ll find a way. Some way to make this right. I swear,” Ash promised. She wrapped her arms around her sister with little regard for the abundance of putrid sludge that yet clung to her clothes. “We’ll find a way...”