Morana appeared as Osric’s mother crossed the room over to the door. Time appeared to stop, the flames stood frozen, as did his mother in mid stride. He swore and broke out into a sweat. Her presence was tantamount to destroying all the rules that governed magic and the universe. The arts could be used to accomplish a great many things, but they followed remarkably simple, absolute, and universal rules. Dead cannot be revived with a soul, the thoughts, or memories of one cannot be “read” by another, and one can only traverse the plane of time through its natural progression. Not even the Eloi were spared these laws, so for her of all people to be able to manipulate them at will was unthinkable.

“Sorry to interrupt Ozzy.” Morana giggled. “But what does she mean by ‘Wolves’?”

Rapacious freeloading scum is what he wanted to say. They were the cause of most of his family’s misfortunes and set him on his current path. He was saddened that their leader died before he got a chance to kill them but took pleasure in murdering their entire clan some years ago. As far as he knew, their decayed corpses still lined the road to Balalaika as warning to this day.

“Brigands. The Wolves of Balalaika. Which means that my sister is six years old and…”

The door swung open and slammed shut as Maleah burst into the room, her lavender hair as unruly as she was; her dress wrinkled and slightly dirty. She looked up in horror at her mother’s glaring eyes and impatiently tapping foot.

“…I’m gonna get a whoopun’ aren’t I?”

“You most certainly are.”

Maleah sniffled as the waterworks began preemptively.

“Where have you been?”

“With Karina. Her babushka made new dollies and she told me I could come play house with her.” Maleah wiped her dripping nose off on her sleeve.

“And where’s your jacket?”

“I don’t know…”

“Damn it Maleah! How many times do I have to tell you it’s not safe to go outside right now! Especially not now!”

“Bu…but I t-tried ta get Ozzy ta take me but… He didn’t wanna!” She cried and aimed her finger at Osric.

“You bitch!” Osric screamed.

“Osric! Language!” His mother scolded.

“But she’s being manipulative as always!”

“Osric! Enough! Maleah, don’t try and pass the blame to your brother.”

“It’s okay mommy! We didn’t see any of the bad men! Just…”

“Just what Maleah?”

“Just this one man that wanted to watch us play house is all. He gave me and Karina sugar beets.”

Their mother covered her mouth in a gasp. “Oh, my stars.”

“Could you be any more naïve?” Osric scoffed.

“Enough Osric, just, just go find your brother. Help him in the fields; make sure he gets home by the sundown.”

“What…”

“Ozzy, please. For Mommy?”

Suddenly his mother and sister were gone, leaving the room silent once again. He exhaled, his body trembling as he clenched and unclenched his fists. This was not from memory; it was different somehow, as if it were happening in real time.

“So, the plot thickens, I wonder what happens next?” Morana chirped as she appeared in the room.

“I believe I’ve indulged you enough, leave my memories to me. Please.”

He wanted to know how the hell she had accomplished this. Morana had drugged him, that was the only logical explanation. Probably with that damned soup she made earlier.

She stirred sugar into a cup of coffee that she inexplicably had. “I can’t do that Ozzy; this next part looks particularly suppressed.”

“You can’t hold this illusion forever Morana, and when it falls, so will you.”

Morana winked and dusk was upon them. “Don’t threaten me with a good time Ozzy.”

“…Damn it…”

The lantern swung above the table, casting queer shadows, the smell of stew filled the drafty cottage as the winds howled and buffeted their humble abode. Maleah busied herself setting the table with chipped plates and generation’s old silverware as their mother put the finishing touches on dinner.

“Oh! Ozzy! I didn’t hear you come in. Where’s Séverin?”

“…On his way.” Osric sighed, dread washed out his features.

“Well come on you two, let’s get you washed up.”

She ushered Maleah over to the basin and touched the water rune upon the faucet, sending forth a jet of icy cold water.

“It’s cold mommy!” Maleah shrieked and recoiled from the frigid torrent.

“Mother, I…”

“Stop fidgeting Maleah. What was that Ozzy?”

The door flung open, assisted by a gust of wind as Séverin stumbled in; cut, dirty and sweat streaked.

“I’m home Mother.”

“As if it wasn’t obvious enough with all that noise! Shut the door already Séverin!”

His brother dropped his tools at the door and shook a small pile of dirt from his hair onto the floor before shutting the door.

“Not in the house Séverin! Go wash up in the trough outside first!”

He ignored his mother’s pleas as he made his way across the room and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“So, what was so important you needed to send the brat down to Chekhov’s farm?”

Séverin purposely muscled his way past Osric on his way to the sink.

“Hey! Watch it!”

Séverin tousled Osric’s freshly brushed hair playfully in response. “Oh, sorry ’bout that Ozzy. Didn’t see ya down there.”

“Mom! Séverin’s messing with me again!” Osric paused; unsure of why or how he spoke a sentence he never thought he would say again.

“By Dawn you’re a crybaby.”

“Oh, don’t you two start that up again! Séverin leave your brother alone, you’re supposed to be the oldest!”

“Yeah! Stop teasing Ozzy Séverin!” Maleah cried with mock agitation as she playfully struck at her older brother.

“Ganging up on me are ya?” He scooped her up and spun her, giggling, overhead.

Osric stood, shaking as tears began to fall uncontrollably.

“Hey, what’s the matter Ozzy? I know you’ve got thicker skin than that.”

Séverin held Maleah at his hip as their mother rushed over and embraced the now sobbing Osric.

“I’ve had enough!”

Osric clutched at his mother and buried his face in her dress, taking in her scent. He longed to remain in that moment, to smell her once more, to feel her warmth, yet dreading what came all the same.

“But we need to see this until the end Ozzy!” Morana cackled.

Her voice filled the room, though she was nowhere in sight. She laughed at his misery as time stood still once more. His brother and sister winked out of existence and he watched in horror as his mother slowly faded away.

“No! Not yet!” Osric pleaded as he nestled further into his mother’s embrace.

He tried to take in as much of her as he could. Her calm, soothing words, the beating of her heart, the feel of her hands caressing his hair. He needed it to last for a lifetime, to forget the irreparable harm he had caused, how he had robbed her of a peaceful eternity.

Morana shrieked in laughter. “No, I think we jump to the trauma now!”

Lightning crashed as Osric found himself alone in the room, the lantern extinguished and swung on its rusted hinges above him, the crackling fire and falling rain echoed all around him.

“It was raining, wasn’t it Ozzy? Or was this some sort of dramatic addition on your part?” Morana giggled.

She appeared beside him from a lazy cloud of smoke. She played with his hair while he unsuccessfully tried to control his sobbing. They stood in relative silence for several moments. All hint of whimsy and humor had left Morana’s eyes. She looked down upon him with a soul-piercing gaze of utter indifference. Osric was overcome with a sense of hopelessness and insignificance. He was nothing to her but a source of amusement; the room seemed to shrink around him, replaced by her gaze. The fear gave way to utter despair, never before had he felt so much like dying. If he had but a sharpened stick, he would have plunged it into his neck to end his miserable existence.

“This was all wrong. Séverin didn’t make it home in time.” Osric murmured with a vacant gaze.

A pounding came at the door that rattled the cottage. It echoed for what seemed like an eternity, leaving all else still and inconsequential. It rang out again; each pause between furious banging was as an eternity. In an instant, it was gone, and the room sprung to life. The tension and panic was palpable, his mother’s face twisted in an expression of abject terror.

“Osric, take your sister and hide!”

Osric took off, the younger self he had been forced into separating from the older, leaving him to stand like a ghost to watch the scene unfold. The knocking came again, aggressive and vile, each thump upon the door caused his heart to skip a beat.

“Mommy? What’s going on?”

Their mother kneeled and shh’d Maleah before she embraced and kissed her one last time. The pounding on the door continued, shaking their meager cottage to the foundation. Osric absently wondered why they did not just break the door down; it was obvious that they could have at any moment.

“It’s alright baby, please; just go with Ozzy, alright?”

Maleah sniffled as tears fell freely down her chubby cheeks. He was struck by how young she looked; he had almost forgotten that she was a child. She still was a child, in his breast he felt what could be only described as love; something he had not felt in what seemed now like an eternity.

“Be strong baby, be strong for Mommy.” Their mother cooed as she brushed a stray strand of hair from her daughter’s face.

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“Mom, we can leave through the bedroom window, there’s no one out there—”

Osric swung at the image of his younger self, his fist passed right through as if made of air.

“Mommy loves you Maleah, you as well Ozzy. Which is why I need you to go and find your brother, I’ll stay and stall them here.”

“Noo!” Maleah cried, sniffling, and sobbing anew.

“It’s alright Maleah; I want you to listen to your brothers alright? They won’t let anything happen to you—”

“Stop this now!” Osric shrieked.

He searched in vain for Morana. None of this was real, he knew that for certain now, but the sting of it was just as strong as it was on that day. He had spent a lifetime burying the scars this event had left, only for her to tear them open again on a whim.

“Promise me you’ll both listen to Séverin alright? Can you promise Mommy?”

“I promise.” Maleah sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes.

They were lies. She lied and felt neither remorse nor guilt. She spat in the face of their mother’s memory by denying the truth of her death. A life given for her, a life she squandered with indolence and mediocrity.

“How is it you remember none of this! She sacrificed herself for you, and you can’t even acknowledge it! You stupid, selfish bitch!”

He cast several spells in rapid succession at the image of his sister, all passed right through her to impact impotently against the floor or wall.

The voices outside became louder, more forceful and agitated.

“Ozzy!” Their mother called her eyes wide with fear.

“I promise mother.” His younger self replied.

“Liar!” Osric screamed and collapsed to his knees.

Maleah and the young Osric disappeared as thunder rolled. Young Osric hid behind the wall leading into the main room, now filled with nearly a dozen bandits. Séverin was a bloody heap next to a pile of tools, struggling to stand as one of the bandits held their mother up by her hair.

“Listen lady, it doesn’t make sense to me either, but let’s just say the boss has certain, tastes.”

His cohorts snickered in amusement behind him.

“You bastard!”

Séverin leapt to his feet and thrust a spade into one of the bandits’ chests, removing the impromptu weapon from his corpse, he slashed wildly, slicing open another’s abdomen, and nicking several others. The leader flung the woman into the wall, grabbed Séverin by the neck, and lifted him off his feet. He looked to his men, one dead and the other clutching his spilled entrails.

“You just killed two of my men boy, how do you plan upon reimbursing my loss?”

Séverin spat blood and phlegm into the man’s face. “Piss off, you can’t have my sister.”

The bandit released Séverin, kneeing him hard in the solar plexus as he fell.

“She’s going regardless boy, how are you going to pay me back?”

The bandit lifted Séverin and repeatedly bashed his head into the table, a malevolent snarl of joy on his lips.

“No please! You mustn’t kill my son!”

The bandit smacked the sobbing woman as she attempted to intervene.

“Your sons a murderer woman! And murderers must be punished!”

The group laughed hilariously at the irony of his statement.

“Please, take me instead! Just leave my children be!” She threw herself to the ground at the brigand’s feet, tears staining her face.

The man dropped Séverin to the ground as a swollen, gasping heap into his own blood and vomit. “You know that’s as good as a death sentence round these parts, for the lot of you.”

“Please, spare my children…” She sobbed in resignation.

The bandit smiled and looked to the eager faces of his companions for approval. “Well of course, we’ll need to inspect the goods for quality before presenting you to our boss.” The bandit motioned to his companions. “You can always make another kid lady, you sure you wanna just throw it all away?”

“…Please, don’t make me beg.”

Thunder crashed and the room was empty, still on his knees, Osric was alone in the silence. The lantern swung overhead, his brother’s fluids still stained the floor, and the fire had died down to smoldering embers.

“Hmm, seems you ran off after that, the memories pick up again the next morning, but I’m not sure I can get into them.”

Morana had since abandoned her mocking tone and sounded more analytical about the whole ordeal. The cottage faded and he was once more in the tower. He remained there, on his knees, a sniveling pathetic wreck. Morana took a seat in his chair and absently leafed through a journal.

“I hate her…”

Morana poured herself a glass of wine. “I’m sorry? Could you speak up Ozzy?”

“She forgot when neither I nor Séverin could; she lived in ignorant bliss to the horrors of that night. She couldn’t even acknowledge the sacrifice made for her; she just lived as if that was how it had always been.” Osric picked up a beaker that had fallen from the table and dashed it against the hearth. He was shaking uncontrollably, images flooded his mind, memories it had taken years to carefully bury. His weakness was evident once more, and it disgusted him, but above all else, he hated her. Morana, Maleah, his mother.

“As if it were her right!”

He stood and swept the bulk of his equipment to the ground. Morana flinched and regarded him with a perplexed expression.

“And Séverin, he was no better! He let her believe it was not her fault! She was the blame for both our parents’ deaths and she neither knows nor cares!”

“How so?” Morana prodded and took a sip of wine.

He knew she was goading him, but no longer cared. He would kill her. It didn’t matter, none of it did. All the pain, the trauma, he had buried it before—he would just have to do so again.

“When she was born, our father joined an anti-monarchy political party and was killed for it, because he didn’t want to raise a daughter in a town run by bandits. Our mother sacrificed herself for her. She gave her life for her!” He angrily brushed his hair from his face as he rapidly paced the room. “What about her other children? She sacrificed the safety and wellbeing of us all to save her!” he flung several books from a shelf across the room.

“Calm down!” Morana scrambled to collect the tattered tomes and rearrange their pages as his tirade continued. “If you go about destroying your own work it’ll get you nowhere!”

“She was so happy! So full of joy! Why?” He clutched at his chest and wrung his robes in frustration. “Why did she get to live in peace whilst I was devoured inside?”

“…I don’t know Osric. Why does anything happen to anyone?”

“Hmph.” Osric discarded his cloak, his temper settling. “Were you not just scorning me? Was not my relived trauma amusing for you?”

“I… I just thought you were… I did not know there was so much to you. I just thought you where another taken in by that demon’s guile.” Morana clutched the tomes to her chest, and looked away, unable to meet his eyes for the fury and sorrow they contained. “I had to be sure of you; I needed to know more about you. I’m sorry.”

Osric lowered his hand briefly, he almost believed her, he so wanted to believe her. Yet even now, she smiled, an almost imperceptible grin she attempted to hide behind her hair. She thought him a fool.

“…As am I.” Osric drew seven intricate glyphs in methodical succession.

“What are you doing?” Morana asked, as if he were joking.

“Though I walk in shadow, let darkness not hinder mine eyes, but bring judgment from these dying skies.” He drew a circle of violet light; the glyphs arranged themselves as black flames around the circle as a line of violet light crisscrossed it, connecting them. “And end all epochs to follow.”

“Those are evil, ancient lines you speak Osric,” she warned. “You do well to end this now before your own soul is consumed by The Dusk. I assure you; you would face a fate far worse than I ever imagined for you.”

Morana tittered uneasily and slowly backed away from him as the doors and shutters slammed closed.

Osric continued calmly, indifferent to her threats. “From Hinterlands I rise, the fallen, the despised. I’ve answered the call; the tower of light shall soon fall. From vacuous abyss, hand of the elder gods, address this remiss”

“You can’t kill me you know!”

Morana backed into a corner as black tendrils of lightning crackled around him, not entirely sure if her words were true or not. He was not sure either, but they would soon find out.

“Tempest rising, skies turn grey, always darkness proceeds the dawn. Left forlorn, yet not forgotten, let wolf devour fawn.”

The circle dripped black sludge that burned through the stone like acid; the air around him became thick and fetid as he placed three more symbols in the center of the circle. He felt the tug at his heart, the indescribable feeling of dark and cold that washed over him. Every spell required a price, and he knew this one’s price far too well. He paused, considering abandoning the casting, but the sight of her cowering before him spurred him to continue. He had long passed the point of no return in all matters.

“As many devour the one, I swallow the sun and watch its kingdom undone.”

The symbols expanded before shrinking back in upon themselves and disappearing. Osric stood, unconcerned with the silence. Morana looked about nonplussed. After several tense moments, a victorious grin began to spread across her face; the spell seemed to have been unsuccessful. He knew otherwise however, he heard the voice cackling in his head, reminding him of its price. Twelve years. Inconsequential to a man doomed regardless.

“Ha! You’ve failed—”

The seven runes suddenly appeared and orbited Morana as the blackest black fell over the room. When the darkness relented, the tower was gone, leaving in its stead the barren wastes of the realm of Dusk.

“Impossible! No!”

“Did I not give adequate warning?” Osric queried, his voice devoid of emotion.

Two arms shot out of the ground and grabbed Morana by the legs as two of the glyphs burned out. The sky erupted into a violent storm of black lightning and blood fell like rain. The grey sky split as two more glyphs fizzled out, and the great red-orange sun fell from out of the heavens. It tore through the overcast as the downpour intensified.

Two wraiths rose from the ground and held Morana’s head up, forcing her mouth open as the sun drew ever nearer. Several other heavily decayed corpses rose up from the soil and ripped her clothes from her body as yet more corpses began to grope and claw at her flesh. Time and space became distorted as the gravity of the star pressed down upon her, the black lightning crackled all around as the blood continued to rain in a torrid, steaming torrent. The wraiths howled in harsh laughter, their sunken faces twisted and deformed in the gravitational flux.

The sun scorched the ground as it approached, the festering skin of the wraiths erupted in to flames of black and orange, their howling laughter was indistinguishable from screams of agony. Morana’s flesh began to boil and blister as the wasteland turned to a hellish inferno. Up was indistinguishable from down, her bones snapped and cracked audibly as the weight of the star continually pressed down upon her. Her body was stretched hither and thither, the boney nails of her captors dug into her flesh as she was roasted alive. The star encompassed the entirety of the sky, yet still it drew closer, spreading out in all directions infinitely.

A pillar of flame erupted from the star before her, so small as to be imperceptible at first. It rapidly grew in size. It spiraled into her mouth, open in a bloodcurdling scream, like water to a drain. Soon it was inside her, forcing itself down her throat. She gagged as the heat blistered and boiled her eyes to nothing but sizzling cavities and scorched her esophagus. Solar flares erupted from her every orifice as another set of glyphs disappeared. Her body began to twist and contort as the gravity wracked her body, distorting her to inhuman proportions. It filled her, inflated her and contorted her in unnatural angles as it seared her insides.

After several minutes that she experienced as an eternity, the last of the sun drained down her throat. She began to rise into the rift that had become the sky as fire continued to erupt from her every pore. The radiation and gravity of the sun twisted and poisoned her body; in moments she suffered years of pain, decades of disease and centuries of suffering. Time had become nothing; only the sun remained. Only the sun and her flesh to be violated and consumed by it. She had taken its place in the heavens, what was mere moments for mortals passed as aeons for her. When the final glyph flickered as if to go out, a bell chimed the solemn hour. Her body expanded and contracted as if she were clay worked by some unseen and sadistic hand, the fires burst from her violently, tearing chunks of her body with them. The final bell tolled and with it, she went supernova in a brilliant flash.

The last rune fizzled out and she fell back to the ground as a flaming meteor and crashed into it with a terrifying impact. A mélange of cosmic formations and celestial debris followed that pummeled her already ravaged body, ending in a cataclysmic explosion that enveloped all of existence in white light.

* * *

When his senses finally returned, Osric was again in the tower and Morana’s broken, charred husk was at his feet. He flipped her corpse over with his foot; all that remained was charred flesh that had fused itself onto bone, her blown out stomach from when the star went supernova, her eye sockets were empty, smoking holes. He glared at her corpse with loathing for several moments before he stumbled over to the chair and collapsed.

He regretted that he had not been able to glean any useful information from the woman he once idolized but was glad that the incantation was a success. It was one of four such spells, ancient, forbidden knowledge hidden in the deepest darkest corners of Silex, two of which did not even reside on his plane of existence. He mopped the sweat from his face as he attempted to pour a glass of wine with shaking hands, splashing most everywhere but the glass. He finally relented, with some difficulty guided the bottle to his lips, and drank like a man returning from exodus in the Eurithanian wastes.

He was still in disbelief that he had managed to kill her. Granted it was using a spell considered to be severe overkill, he was almost certain a woman of her skill would have had a counter. She did not however, to her detriment, and his as well. If she had been cooperative, the knowledge he could have gained from her would have made his campaign worthwhile a dozen times over.

Morana’s corpse stirred slightly, causing him to pause in horror, and then confusion before his usual apathy returned. She moaned and groaned in agony as the bones were mended and audibly snapped back into place. The flesh on her bones slowly reformed, first as its current burnt state, slowly reversing the burning process. First, to return were the organs and muscle, then the silky layer of flesh; after several moments she was as new and stood as naked as when he first found her.

“That… fucking hurt. You irredeemable fucking bastard.”

Osric put the bottle to his mouth and took a drink, resigned to his fate. “Hmm… perhaps you’ll think thrice before invading my mind in the future. As you are well aware, there are three other such spells after Fenrir, and I would very much like to try them out.”

And be dead by noon tomorrow. Twelve years wasted, if he planned on getting out of this ordeal alive, he would have been thoroughly pissed.

“Light! I’m so fucking horny! Fuck!”

Osric recoiled in surprise and averted his eyes as she began to pleasure herself. The act was completely unexpected and more jarring to him than her resurrection. He felt his cheeks burning as curiosity nagged at him to look, he had never seen a woman pleasure herself before and was more than a little bit enticed. He recalled she had mentioned something about gaining arousal from pain as a punishment, but had failed to put the two together, until now.

“I hate you! Fucking sadist!” she screamed, with equal lust and contempt.

Aroused and disgusted by her hatred and pain, tears flowed down her face. She hesitantly lay back and redoubled her efforts at achieving climax as she moaned between sobs. In a brief moment of clarity, he was able to comprehend some of her hell, and pitied her momentarily.

“Tsch… masochist. Go find a room somewhere and come back with some decent clothes on.”

She glared at him with red, teary eyes as she bit her lower lip, writhing upon the table. With one hand, she vigorously fingered her clitoris, whilst the other attempted in vain to cover her shame. She closed her eyes and disappeared in an explosion of light and smoke, leaving Osric alone in the silent tower.

He took a breath and burped, nearly spewing forth the contents of his stomach. He took his sash and wiped the sweat from his brow as he tried to rise from his chair. Weak and sick with fever, he began to shake and heave uncontrollably. Intense nausea and pain overcame him; he leaned out of his chair to curl into a ball on the floor. He choked and retched as he clumsily tried to sit up, vomiting out viscous black sludge before he collapsed onto a pile of texts.