Alecyn’s fingers dug into the flinty soil, convulsing against sharp edges that were nothing as compared to the fire that assailed her. She could not open her eyes as though shutting out the sight of what caused such agony would alleviate its source. She was screaming silently; The sounds being drawn from her drowned by the terrible wailing of the weapon that was killing her. Consciousness wavered, her mind seeking an escape that her body could not give. Her limbs were convulsing now, and she tasted blood from the inside of her mouth where gnashing teeth had torn flesh.
Madeleine took a half-step back from Alecyn’s icy stare. Pain wracked her face, streaked with sweat and dirt. But her eyes were cold. Alecyn’s teeth bared as she forced her hands flat against the ground, pushing hard. Madeleine turned the handle faster, and Alecyn staggered but continued to rise, eyes never leaving Madeleine’s. She could hear a sound at the edge of her senses. Her awareness expanded as it grew. It was music. It was beautiful and terrible, an undertone of looming menace scoring the melody. She drew it closer. Somehow, Alecyn knew that the music was coming from the surrounding land, that she was hearing the world’s pulse. The music enveloped her, and the pain receded. Strength returned to trembling limbs, and she knew she was drawing the world’s life force into her and using it. She also remembered the warning Madeleine had given her about doing this.
She took a step towards Madeleine.
“Stop Madeleine. Let me help you. I swear I can help you!”
Madeleine’s head shook frantically, and she lifted the box high, closing her eyes. The pain returned, doubled as the sound from the box intensified. Madeleine backed away, visibly shaking with the effort of holding it. Her head whipped back and forth. Every visible muscle was taut. Alecyn opened her mouth again, but the music came forth. It was no sound or song of her making, yet it was as well-known to her as a lullaby from her cradle. She directed it towards that terrible instrument of torture, and the box shattered into a thousand shards. Madeleine staggered, and one foot slipped off the edge of the precipice. Alecyn darted towards her, feeling the fabric of Madeleine’s dress beneath her fingers, then the thin bones of her wrist. Madeleine was falling backward, eyes wide with horror as Alecyn’s hand closed on hers.
“I have you!” Alecyn yelled as she dug her heels into the ground, frantically trying to stop her forward motion. But she was moving too fast, and Madeleine’s momentum carried them both over the edge. She looked into Madeleine’s eyes as she realized there was nothing she could do to save the woman. They were no longer wide but calm. She felt Madeline losing her grip.
“No!” Alecyn screamed. A strong arm was suddenly tight about her waist. Someone pulled her backward, off her feet, away from the edge, away from Madeleine. The other woman disappeared over the edge while Alecyn was carried to the ground. She fought and kicked her way free as the grip loosened and regained her feet, whirling around. It was the man she had encountered on the slope that she had spotted that night in the forest after escaping from Argent. The man who had stopped her from saving Madeleine. The music swooped and soared around her, awesome in its power and hers to command. Rage filled Alecyn, and the theme darkened and became thunderous.
“I could have saved her!” Alecyn spat. “I swore I would save her!”
The music erupted from her again, throwing the man from his feet and thrusting him towards the cliff edge as though hurled by a whirlwind. He scrabbled frantically at the stone and earth, clawing tracks towards the edge.
“I came here to save you!” He screamed as his legs found nothing but air beneath them.
Power surged through Alecyn, laying bare the world around her and exposing its innermost workings. She could hear nuances in the great symphony she drew on for power. They represented life within the surrounding lands, animals, and plants. She realized a delicate counterpoint and knew it was the signature of human life, hers, his, and those behind the walls facing them across the valley. She was the master of the song. Nothing was beyond her. She even envisioned how to turn back death. She smiled in pure joy at the feeling of overwhelming omnipotence.
And then she saw Eevee. Her rag doll cat stood before her, green eyes unblinking. But there was another form there too, a woman dressed in grey with pure white hair and eyes that...They were the same eyes. Those eyes had always seemed to Alecyn to be wise with the knowledge of realms mere humans would never know. The woman’s form became misty, fading. The cat remained.
Suddenly, Alecyn saw what she was doing. The music stopped as she recoiled in horror. Filled with rage, she was on the verge of killing that man. She did not know if he was a friend or an enemy, but he had saved her life. She remembered Madeleine’s warning about over-drawing power from the world around her. The force from Alecyn dissipated. The man was scrabbling back from the edge now. Alecyn moved towards him, but he raised a hand.
“Stay back!”
“I’m sorry!” implored Alecyn. “It carried me away, the power of it, I...I... do not know…”
How could she explain why she had been ready to kill him? What could justify that? Horns blared, and Eevee’s head whipped around, looking further along the mountain track at the dark figures that were racing towards them from the walled city.
“We must go. They do not mean us well, and I cannot carry us away the way we arrived. There is a power in that bloody place which is awake to us now and is blocking me.”
Alecyn gaped. The voice had been in her head, and it came from Eevee. Somehow, she knew it did. The sound it made was nothing like what she imagined a cat would sound like. It was hard-edged and accented strangely. It reminded her of one of her Irish great aunts, terrifying old ladies who had lived through war and civil war.
“You can talk?! How... when…?” Alecyn floundered over the words. She felt like she was struggling through a storm-tossed sea, and each new wave only slapped her in the face after she had surmounted the previous one.
“You do not need to speak the words, girl. He cannot hear me; you will look silly. This one is Jerad, and he is here to help us. But do not dally batting your eyelashes at him when we should run!”
Jerad had a long blade in his hand, dividing his attention between wary glances at Alecyn and the approaching forms. He spoke in a rush as though afraid Alecyn would stop him.
“It will not take them long to reach us. You have no reason to trust me, Alecyn, but Eevee does, and I hope she can talk to you the way she could with the Kajani and is telling you so.”
“She did,” Alecyn replied. Jerad’s eyes held hers for a moment.
“I came to rescue you from Argent. I did not do an outstanding job. You rescued yourself.”
“Luck.”
Jerad still looked wary. His posture was one of being poised for flight or fight. “I am sorry about your friend. I could not reach her, but if I had not pulled you back, she would have carried you over the edge with her.”
“I know,” Alecyn replied sadly. “You have nothing to fear from me, though, if you mean me or Eevee no harm.”
Jerad shook his head. “I would die for you.”
“Steaming great piles of…! Will you ever come on!” Eevee barked. She had darted to the tree line and lashed her tail in annoyance.
Alecyn paused only to grab her Irish flute, gripping it fiercely. She reached out to Jerad. He took her hand, and they ran into the trees.
Their flight through the forest, over rock-like roots and razor-like rocks, was a precarious dance of sprints, slips, and stumbles. The sun pierced through the trees to dazzle them without warning. Only Eevee easily descended the hillside, flowing around obstacles gracefully. Jerad’s grip was firm on her hand, his skin hard and rough. That steady hold righted a trip that tumbled her head over heels. Eyes met each time, faces set in concentration, unable to spare a muscle for a smile of thanks. As they ran, Alecyn heard Eevee’s voice in her head.
“Hurry! Hurry! Will you ever lift your bloody feet?! Shift yourselves!”
Alecyn could not spare the breath for speech but tried to form the words in her mind instead. Nothing. She imagined herself singing the words, her throat twitching as she did.
“How did the two of you find me?”
“Through the Song, how else?!” came Eevee’s irritated reply. “You always took your sweet time learning a new instrument.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Of course! If those things do not reach us first. Did you not even listen when Erevar told you to beware the Tall Towers?”
Suddenly, Eevee stopped dead, staring ahead of them where a stream crossed their path, and the land rose sharply on the far side.
“Ya dancer!” she exclaimed, her tone one of pure triumph.
Alecyn followed Eevee’s green-eyed stare and saw a figure standing atop the ridge. She felt Jerad release her hand and turned his attention to others who were moving through the trees to either side of them. The sun shone behind them, rendering them shadows. Alecyn saw that each appeared hooded, standing tall and thin. The ones that were moving through the trees swept through the air with the agility of monkeys. They had four arms, Alecyn realized, two of which seemed to sprout from their backs and were used to swinging themselves from branch to branch.
“What does the feline make of them?” Jerad asked, trying to keep all of them in his sight, bow held low with a knocked arrow knocked.
“She. Has a name.” Alecyn replied shortly.
“She never introduced herself. Just jumped into my arms and flew the pair of us halfway around the world.”
“They are Nelim,” Eevee informed Alecyn. She was standing still, frozen to the spot. “They are as suspicious as badgers, hell bells! Their minds are too alien for me to influence.”
Suddenly, she was moving again, slinking back to her human companions. “I tried to touch them through the Spirit Road, but they are having none of it.” She settled herself beside Alecyn and began licking her paws. “I’m afraid you are on your own with this one.”
Jerad was quick, watching Eevee wash herself unconcernedly. “So, are we talking or fighting our way out, then?”
“Put the bow down, Jerad,” Alecyn ordered.
“I think I will hold on to it for now,” Jerad replied, turning a slow circle, and noting the position of his potential targets. Alecyn was at his side in two quick strides and pushed the bow down herself. She held Jerad’s gaze firmly.
“Eevee says to trust you. But you should know that fighting and killing will always be my last resort, and if you want to stay with us, you better get along with that idea, too.”
There was a moment in which Alecyn felt her heart beating in her chest as Jerad stared defiantly at her. A flame in his eyes resonated within her. Then she realized she could hear music again, on the edge of perception. It was a thumping bravado and glory theme, overcast with a haunting melancholy. She knew it was him, that if she shifted the focus of her attention, his theme would be in her mind and his soul hers to examine. She shied away, blocking out the music with a mental flex. The thought of such power over another was wrong, and her desire for that power was terrifying.
Jerad nodded his assent. “As you command, lady.” A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips as he returned his attention to the silent figures.
Alecyn stepped forward and spoke. As she did, she pushed out her awareness, not knowing how she did it until it was done. The forest was a discordance, an uproar of life, death, and birth, refrains endlessly repeating and mutating. She tuned it out. The figures around them sang in strange melodies. Discordant and yet melodic, stately, and then whipping into a frenzied, whirling dance. The sounds were gone without warning, cut off as though by the slamming of a thick door.
One figure spoke suddenly in a language she did not recognize. All eyes focused on her.
“You are a Singer?” one of them spoke.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” Eevee hissed. “Speak up, girl. Yes!”
“Yes,” Alecyn replied calmly, not looking at the cat.
“You will not read us without our permission.”
“Agreed.” Alecyn wondered if that was what she had been doing.
“Like giving a complete physical check-up to a stranger in the street. Intrusive and ever so slightly strange.” Eevee informed her mockingly. Alecyn flushed.
“I did not know.”
“There is a lot you do not know, girl.”
“You were nicer when you could not talk, moggy.”
Eevee meowed loudly and moved over to Jerad, receiving a scratch behind the ears as she slunk past his booted feet.
“We saw you and your Nelim friend approach the Tall Towers.”
“She was not my friend. I thought she was, but... someone deceived me.”
“Indeed. We felt the song wrapping you in sleep. Would you have walked so willingly to that place without the bonds of sleep?”
“No. I received a warning. By Erevar.”
Suddenly, one figure called out a long, trilling whistle and snatched Jerad's sword and bow, which flew to its outstretched hands. Alecyn felt the flute in her hand twitch, slipping through her grip slightly. She clutched it tighter.
“I have only just got this back. You are not having it.” Her tone spoke with finality.
“I see no tree limbs on your back. I hear no forest song in your aura. How would you know of one who has never left the Heart? Is it a name you heard spoken of once?”
“Yes, by one who spoke to me on the Spirit Road and gave that as his name. From a city amid the trees. And who might you be?”
“I am Rian. We are the Wardens.”
The horns sounded again, closer than ever before. Suddenly, the Wardens were moving again; a burst of alien language flew between them. Rian’s head whipped between the speakers, adding his own voice to the noise. Then they were ascending the trees with the fluid ease of snakes and disappearing back the way they had come. The others descended the slope rapidly, taking up positions behind the humans. They were a head and shoulders taller than Jerad, who stood a decent height for a man in Alecyn’s mind. They were blade-thin and clad in figure-hugging material that shone with a dull gloss. Tattooed skin was visible through cuts in the material, which looked deliberate, the tears forming their own patterns. Their skin was purple, the tattoo darker against their skin and shiny as though woven from strands of wire. From the backs of each, a long, multi-jointed limb unfolded, ending in small hooks that flexed like fingers. Each limb flashed with practiced ease into black sheaths that each wore on their hips. As the limbs retracted, they encased feet of gleaming, sharp-looking metal.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Hana will delay them, to give us time to get some distance.”
“I can get all of us away from here if we can get from under this... cloud,” Eevee informed Alecyn. “He has his own Singers, and they must know it.”
“I can move us with magic if we can get far enough.”
“Call it the Song dearie,” Eevee advised. The Wardens had all exchanged looks at her mention of magic. “Magic just sounds childish.”
“Can you do that?” Jerad asked, his tone challenging as though defending Alecyn’s naivety.
“Not for any but myself. And not under this...cloud.” One of the Wardens admitted. The one who had confiscated Jerad’s weapons.
“So, we run then,” Alecyn said.
“Give me my bow, and I can help fight them off if they come too close,” Jerad asked. Rian shook his head.
“You are not guests or friends. We want to know why you were on the road to the Tall Towers and who threw one of our kind from a cliff. Try anything, and we will forgo our curiosity and kill you.” He turned to Alecyn. “Use the Song against us, and we will sell our lives dearly. Akken is not the only of us with the gift.” He lifted a long, thin arm and pointed. “Now, we run that way.”
The chase began again, this time with the long-limbed Wardens flanking them.
“What is it that is hanging over us?” Alecyn asked.
“I do not have all the answers, girl. You may have noticed I am new here too, even if I have made better use of my time,” came the snapped reply from Eevee.
“But there is a force in that city that your companion awakened. And the power of it has me shaking just thinking about it. It feels like it is hovering over us, waiting to scoop us up. They feel it, too.”
“The Wardens?”
“Yes, I feel they are always sensitive with strangers, but I think they are especially on edge.”
Jerad pulled her close by her arm and whispered to her, as though he knew what Eevee had said.
“They are nervous. And part of that nervousness is because of you. They may try to measure your strength. Try to keep them off guard.”
Alecyn nodded. The same thought had occurred to her. The Wardens cast occasional glances back at her, and she made a point of catching their stares every time and returning them flatly. She was aware of the warm and strong grip on her upper arm and felt a twinge of regret when he released it.
From behind them, high above, came the sounds of shouts and screams. The shouts were in the Warden’s own language; the screams were inhuman. Rian steered them along a swift-flowing stream that cut a steepening gorge through the woodland. Walls of stone and earth around them narrowed until there was no bank room, and they splashed through the water. The air was thick with the smell of damp stone and rotting earth, and the babble of the rushing water was loud in the confined space.
“This is a perfect ambush spot,” Jerad muttered from ahead of her. Rian led, his long-legged strides lifting in and out of the water with little effort.
“We risk a trap to reach safety faster.” He replied. “Hana and the others will keep the high paths clear of the enemy for us.”
There were more howling animal screams, and then, without warning, a black shape fell to the ground ahead of them. It bounced from rocks as it fell, landing in an explosion of water. It was dead. Rian barely paused in his stride to look up. Alecyn saw the figures of Wardens whipping across the top of the gorge. She looked at the dead body as they passed and wished she had not. It was like an insectile centaur. The upper body and head were recognizably human, though with black skin. Below the waist, though, was a single exterior mass tapering to a sharp point. She could see dozens of spider-like legs beneath that shell.
She caught Jerad’s eye, and he shook his head. “I have seen nothing like it before.”
“This is a new beast.” One of the Wardens spoke up from behind them. “The men of the Tall Towers labor long to make obscenities like this. Their imagination knows no limits.” The Warden’s tone was dripping with hatred. Alecyn realized that if the inhabitants of Tall Towers were human, then the Wardens assumed that she and Jerad were in league with them. Or even from there. She wondered what awaited them at the end of their flight. Interrogation, then execution?
“Do you know anything about that place?” She asked Jerad, referring to the Tall Towers.
“It was a human settlement called Skylands once, a long time ago. We used to get merchants from there to the Southlands looking to buy stormbirds. Then, the merchants stopped, and the rumors started. That Skylands had allied itself to the Silence. Then, the gates closed to outsiders, and people stopped calling it Skylands. It became just Nameless.
“Here!” The gorge they followed ended in a blank wall of glistening stone. The stream formed a large pool, and the walls above them opened into a rough circle. Alecyn could see a ring of Wardens around that circle. A flurry of movement occurred, and then someone flung another black, monstrous shape over the edge, causing it to hit the water’s surface as though it were solid stone. One of the Wardens strode into the middle of the pool. The water came to his waist, which meant it would have been over Alecyn’s shoulders. He threw back his hood, revealing bright blue hair in a thick mane that ran down the middle of his head. Tattoos covered his head and face, glinting in the sunlight. Alecyn realized they were moving, flowing through different patterns. A sound emerged from his mouth, a note of pure beauty that made Alecyn gasp. She felt Jerad draw closer, his shoulder brushing hers.
Darkness swallowed the Warden. A column of black fire hammered downwards to crush him like a giant stamping on an insect. Water raced away from the impact in a wave, which soaked Alecyn to the skin. She was blinded momentarily, and when she looked back, a woman stood where the Warden had been moments before. She was bald and pale-skinned, except for her mouth, which was blood-red and pouting. Those lips twitched into a smile as she looked around her and saw Alecyn. Her figure was distinctly female beneath metal that followed every contour. It looked like it should be enough to render her immobile, but she moved as though naked.
Jerad reacted immediately, calling out Akken’s name. The Nelim understood, and with a sharp, rising scale of notes, the bow and sword lashed through the air to their master’s waiting hands. The woman also reacted. She raked metal-clad fingers down her armored arm, producing a sound that pierced Alecyn like a thousand nails raked down a blackboard. She wanted to tear off her ears to block out that sound, for a moment losing her reason to the maddening pain. The woman made a casual flicking gesture, and Akken lifted from the water, his limbs spread impossibly wide to either side of his body. Alecyn looked away as an awful tearing sound silenced Akken’s frantic screams. The pieces of his body fell back into the water, and chaos reigned.
The Wardens surged forward, striding through the water with bladed limbs raised, cascading over the high walls that enclosed the pool. The woman smiled and then laughed as she moved in the narrowing focus of their attack. When she slapped her hands together, the Nelim experienced a forceful impact, causing him to be thrown backward in a spray of dark blood, like being hit by a shotgun shell. She scraped her metal-clad body, producing unique sounds and each killing a Warden in blood and gore. Her laughter was music, leaving Alecyn feeling like a film of filth was covering her. It was corrupt and impure, tainting the very air. A haze was rising from the water around the woman, and the Wardens were now choking as they ran. They began to stumble and collapse, blood erupting from their eyes and mouths.
Jerad stood frozen, bow raised and aimed, but unable to get a clear shot through the surging bodies of the Wardens. His face was a mask of frustration. Eevee darted back and forth, tail stiff and fur bristling. She yowled and spat.
“We have to do something, Eevee!” Alecyn forgot herself enough to shout the words.
“Do you think that has not occurred to me, girl?” came Eevee’s reply. “I am not strong enough. I dare not leave my body. That thing could tear me apart without even thinking about it.”
Alecyn drew the Irish flute from her pocket and put it to her lips. She remembered the tune she had played when she had first awoken in this world and how it had dissipated the darkness. She began to play as she did, visualizing the woman bound and helpless on her knees. She somehow knew that this was the core of her power, producing music and directing its power. The woman turned to her as the notes began to fill the canyon. The surviving Wardens hung back, keeping a wary distance as the woman began to stride through the water towards Alecyn. Cutting through the water as though it was not there. Her smile deepened and broadened, revealing white teeth.
Suddenly, the pool swirled about her, thick water cables lifting to surround her. The smile wavered for a second as the watery ropes bound themselves to her tighter and tighter. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they flashed into steam at a series of jangling metallic chords.
“Very creative. Your power will increase once you receive training. You have the greatest potential yet.”
Alecyn lowered the flute in shock. The woman’s voice had a distinctly American twang to her accent.
“Who are you?!” she demanded.
“I am the Black Hand. At least, that is how these fools would know me. It is a good name, though the name I was born with was Rose.”
Alecyn floundered. She wanted to know where this woman was from but could not bring herself to ask.
“You want to know…” the woman began slowly. “Where I am from?”
“You sound... American.” Alecyn stumbled. She backed away as the woman slowly advanced towards her, stalking like a cat.
“I was,” the woman purred. “From Hunter’s Quay, Tennessee, ma’am.” She broadened her accent in mockery. “Did they tell you that you were the first?”
“I do not know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. They told you that a human had never come through the Gateway before, that you were the fulfillment of a prophecy?” She laughed. Her voice was throaty and seductive. “There have been so many Alecyn. They scoop them up, assess them, and discard them like overripe fruit.
“Except you?” Alecyn asked.
“Except me and you so far. Another found me. Those who would tell you they are good and the one I serve is evil. They would have killed me if they could. But my master prevented them, and from him, I learned to use my power, the power of this world. And so could you.”
She reached out a gleaming, metal hand towards Alecyn.
“Come with me, Alecyn. My path is one that will lead you to power you have only dreamed of.” She raised her head and breathed deeply. “I can feel that you have already tasted it. I can hear the echoes of it in your soul. These insects would hold you back from it and tell you it is evil. And if they cannot shape you as a tool to their own design, they will kill you, like they killed so many others before I could reach them.
Her voice filled the canyon, rebounding off the walls and magnifying. It muted everything else, making the world seem gray while Rose herself stood bright and gleaming in the center of Alecyn’s attention.
“Concentrate, Alecyn!” came a tart, acerbic tone. “She is casting a spell over you, girl! See through her!”
Through the growing mist, Alecyn noticed Eevee standing between her and Rose, fur standing on end as she hissed at the armored woman. Rose looked at her in annoyance, making a barking sound. Eevee lifted from the water in a smooth leap as a small explosion fountained up from where she stood. The cat landed smoothly on a small rock ledge in the wall at head height. Rose’s eyes blazed as she made another sound. The fog was lifting as her concentration was breaking. Alecyn realized Jerad was shouting and raising the bow, quickly losing three arrows. A Warden launched itself from the water, two-bladed limbs raised high above its head.
Alecyn raised the flute to her lips again, playing with frantic speed. This time, she visualized Madeleine’s permanently closed mouth. As Eevee leaped from the exploding rock, Rose flung her hands to a mouth suddenly sealed tight shut. Alecyn kept playing. Rose’s armor was soft and soundless. Silence clung to her like a blanket. She saw a thick, soft, straight jacket around the woman in her mind’s eye, holding the image, trying to see every detail. The tune that unfolded from the flute was complex and felt new and ancient. It was as though she wrote it second by second and yet had known it her entire life.
Cruel, blue eyes locked on Alecyn’s from above a red, closed mouth. Rage contorted the face with cruel blue eyes locked on Alecyn's from above a red, closed mouth. The tune stalled, the notes soured and discordant as though the flute had suddenly warped. She continued trying to play, but each note seemed turned against her, corrupted by its true tones. The arrows whirled about Rose instead of striking her, then launched themselves at the Wardens that fell through the air behind her. They impaled it, ripping through its spindly form in a spray of blood, hurling it back through the air with unnatural force.
Ice-blue eyes turned their attention to Jerad, who was knocking another arrow. The bow fell from senseless fingers as he rose from the water, arms twitching. His limbs stretched out from his body in a star shape, trembling as they twitched. Alecyn dropped the flute. Rose’s mouth opened, and she took a deep breath as though it was her first for a while. She turned her attention back to Alecyn. Neither noticed Eevee’s still form, which was sheltered atop the rock wall of the canyon, curled into a circle and as still and silent as a statue.
“Enough of this foolishness. You cannot hope to defeat me, Alecyn. I have had centuries to master my art. And I learned from one who himself made the rules of the mystic arts in this world. I came to show you the truth and take you with me.”
“Leave him alone!” Alecyn shouted, angry at the casual death and pain this creature had inflicted.
“Take my hand. Come with me, and he will live. We will go from this place.”
Alecyn shook her head. “No, I will not join you or your master. I have seen enough to know where the power you offer leads.”
Rose shrugged unconcernedly. “Then you will die. The Nelim will kill you if you do not pass their tests. Or you will die at my hands when they throw you against me. They intend you to be a weapon, but they will not hesitate to discard you and choose yet another if it serves their purpose. They took away another innocent life from their home and family. Is it right that they brought you here, Alecyn? Is it right that we will bring others here unless we take control of the Gateways?”
Jerad’s face was taut with agony. Alecyn could almost hear the tendons and muscles tightening. He closed his eyes tightly, teeth gritted.
“Not true...twisting the...truth! You...are...the...” He hissed, his voice degenerating into a pained howl as Rose sang and his armor tore at the joints. “I was the first!” Rose screamed. Jerad’s head whipped back, blood spurting from his ears and eyes. “And I refused to be ruled by prophecy. I took my own destiny into my hands.”
Jerad’s shoulder suddenly popped from its socket with a sickening sound. His plaintive scream cut Alecyn like a knife.
“Stop it!” She screamed.
“Surrender!” Rose demanded. “Or I will rip him apart and keep him alive while I do it.”
Alecyn fell to her knees. Around her was a symphony of pain and suffering. It jarred against her awareness, making her flinch. Rose was an anti-melody within that chaos, her being represented as discordant notes falling in indecipherable patterns. Jerad’s theme was weak beneath that discord and weakening further. Over it all, the world around her screamed at the power that twisted and warped it out of the truth. But far beneath it all was something barely registered on her perception’s edges. Something which made her heart leap.
“OK,” she whispered, head falling. “Just don’t hurt him.”
Alecyn closed her eyes, shutting out the sights around her and concentrating on the new senses that had awakened since she had come to this world. Her awareness shifted onto another plane, the Spirit Road. She heard the great Song and the world that had come from it. Jerad's song, once strong but now weak, sounded sweet to her ears. She reached out to him without moving, a soft lullaby coming from her lips to caress him. He responded, his theme growing in strength.
She also identified another theme, growing in strength, a thumping fight song of the kind that, once upon a time, professional soldiers would have suppressed on the streets where ordinary men stood tall against them. It was Eevee. Alecyn sought her own strength and could feel the music welling within her. It spoke of ancient times and faraway places and had a fresh and vibrant energy of the new world. And now, the thrilling, still alien tones of this world creeping into the song’s edges, re-making it anew. It was her. This world was becoming part of her, infusing itself into her as the new world of America had done to her great-grandparents. She realized that in Rose, she felt only one world. There was nothing of the place from which she had come. She had become entirely a being of this world. Alecyn wondered at that for an eternal moment. In her new perception, time stretched like putty.
Something in Eevee’s song told Alecyn that she had left her body and was walking the Spirit Road. Alecyn opened her eyes, smiling at the evil, snarling beast that confronted her. She had never felt so at peace; since she had awakened in this world, she had never felt so part of it. But her own world was still at the core, its own magic rising through her, uncaged for the first time.
“You’re wrong, Rose,” Alecyn said as she stood. Rose took an involuntary step back. She recognized the thrumming power which now suffused Alecyn’s words. They were the words of a sorceress awakening to her power for the first time.
“You gave up the song which rings in your blood. The song of our world, where you and I came from. There have been others. I am being used. But I know who I am. My blood sings of Irish princes and Viking warriors and American freemen. And now it sings about the people of this world who wish to be free. I will not abandon them to you. And I will not forget who I was.”
Rose screamed, a sound of pure rage and hatred. Fire coursed from her hands to encase Alecyn. But her Song met the flames, and they hardened instantly into ice and then shattered into a soft powder. A giant figure disgorged itself from the rock wall behind Alecyn. It lifted one foot encrusted with roots, rocks, and mud over Jerad. A roaring wind conjured by Alecyn pushed him clear. Then roots leaped from the earth to wrap themselves around the giant foot, which splashed into the pool where Jerad had lain. The creature roared as more roots snaked upwards to encase its torso and arms, pulling it inexorably downwards, back into the earth from where it had come.
Armor chimed, and Alecyn felt its dark music attempting to gain a hold of her, attempting to pull her flesh from her bones. Barely pausing, she changed her singing melody, instinct driving her choice. Rose staggered, choking, as the song of tearing flesh backed up in her throat, forced back into her lungs by Alecyn.
“I do not want to hurt you, Rose. I should try to kill you, but I am not ready for that. I want you to run away.”
Rose ran at her. Her screaming shook the rock walls around them, raising the water’s surface into a shivering haze of vibrating droplets. Darkness engulfed Alecyn as though her assailant had swept a cloak off the surrounding night around her. A steel finger closed around Alecyn’s arms. A screaming mouth with bared white teeth descended towards Alecyn's throat. Alecyn’s Song wrapped itself around Rose, pushing her back but meeting a force equal to itself.
“If you do not join us, I will feast on your blood! The great Song is mine!” Rose’s words descended into a bestial howl.
“Eevee! Help me!”
“Here comes the cavalry!”
Alecyn believed that the struggling pair were frozen in a blaze of glorious sound, which surely originated from the trumpets of angels. The rock wall behind them was opening, the stone peeling away smoothly to reveal a golden path reaching an impossible distance back into the cliff. But it was not an underground tunnel. Light blazed from it. Alecyn could see towering trees shimmering with lights. It was from those trees that the glorious sounds came, enough to weaken Alecyn’s knees. Rose, too, was affected, and the pair found themselves on the ground, still locked together. But now Rose was pulling away frantically. Alecyn held onto her momentarily, taking seconds to realize she did not have to hold the other woman away from her.
Nelim were riding down the golden road out of the impossible forest. They shone. Their theme dominated by the majestic trees. Leading them were two figures. One she recognized, though she had forgotten all but his name, unable to remember any details from her last trip on the Spirit Road. The other was a woman in grey, with blazing white hair and flashing green cat’s eyes. The shining Nelim riders coursed out into the world, their light dimming as they emerged, revealing silver armor and manes strung with bells and chimes that sang in the wind of their passage. Erevar stopped at the gates, but Eevee stepped through and was a cat once more, leaping joyously towards Alecyn.
Rose stumbled away from the charging riders whose steeds shrieked and stamped, driving a wall of sound before them. There was one last furious scream, and then her body whirled, becoming a haze of swirling black dust, and then scattering in the breeze.