The morning sun had just crept above the walls as Nannade and Ionna were sitting underneath a balcony at the side of the palace. Nannade was hastily scribbling down a spell while Ionna held lookout for guards who could spot them. They had barely set a foot towards the palace when the alarm bells had gone off. Nannade had tried to gain entrance by scaling the walls again, but the shaped stone was smoother than a porcelain plate, so her claws found absolutely no hold. The palace also had apparently no servants entrance, which was odd enough.
It was Ionna who had finally figured out a solution. She had gotten out her grappling hook and aimed for one of the balconies’ balustrades. She threw and the hook went over, when Ionna pulled on the rope and it remained up there. The hook held. For now.
Nannade got to climbing up and ensured the hook was still holding up, then gave Ionna the okay.
They peeked through the door. Beyond lay some sort of private chamber, dark, but Nannade could see the warm figure lying on the bed. It was a woman, obviously pregnant. Of course a palace with such an affluence of rooms and chambers would house the privileged class of the cult. Maybe this one was an especially promising vessel for another soldier or a powerful mage?
“We must be quiet, lieutenant, she’s not guarded but she could have an uneasy sleep.”
They managed to sneak through the room unnoticed and were on the corridor, lit by fine and bright light-vials. They had no idea where to go next, so Ionna took the lead and led them down the corridor and through a large double-winged door.
They were on a sort of gallery above a large hall. They could see archers and arcanists at the balustrade with arrows at the ready.
There was something odd that Nannade noticed about the guards.
“They’re all women.” she whispered to herself.
“So?” Ionna was about to try sneaking past but Nannade held her back.
“It doesn’t make sense to have the male military outside, but only women in here. Now I know why there’s no servant’s entrance: the servants would use it to sneak down to the fortress for a toss 'n tumble. The women here are locked in.”
Ionna expressed her lack of understanding or interest gladly. “So? Is this important?”
“Never mind. I’m just analysing everything I can.” Nannade still took note. She assumed that either the cult was all-female led, or that there was an even deeper level. Or the demon of fertility could have been bound to a human body, which would then become an object of immeasurable desire for anyone of the opposite sex. Maybe this she-demon was surrounded by women for that very reason.
“We will have to go through this hall.” Ionna told Nannade while peeking through the slightly open door. “Impossible to take all these archers on alone. Do you have any magic for that?”
Of course, Nannade still had Constrictors and Flooding Shadows, she could no doubt deal with quite a few. But she did not think it a good idea or wise investment.
“We need to find another way, lieutenant.”
“How?”
“Let’s get back through the corridor and look for another one.”
Ionna drew the girl close by the shoulder. “We need to wait here, for the rest of the platoon, and for Ser Andronicus. That is a command!”
“You’re under my command, forgot? Don’t worry, I won’t force you to come along.”
Nannade went back down the corridor. She came to a bend to the right and when she looked around, she could see another double winged door. Carefully peeking through, she saw an empty room that seemed to be some kind of antechamber. Most of the room was taken up by cushioned benches and chairs along the walls, and above them hung paintings.
She entered and closed the door behind her. Just out of curiosity, she took place on one of the benches. She preferred this room much to the waiting room of Northbridge university. There was no clock however, the paintings were much more pleasing to look at anyway. She got up to inspect them further. They depicted a few battles, but mostly scenes from court, and nature. She recognized the central mountain mass of Stakkarun in some of them. She marvelled at the finest strokes of brushes thinner than the tips of her claws, and as she went around the room, she saw more and more scenes with a certain coy lewdness to them. Mistresses beckoning to stalwart strappers and cicisbei, honoured lords carefully caressing the curves of concubines.
She was about to get lost in the scenes so deeply, that she almost smelled the perfume, when she saw one that intrigued her more than any. A king or lord or other noble was receiving a delegation, two crolachans, a man and a woman, accompanied by crolachan guards, all of them obviously of the western tribe. The man and woman were clad in finery, with colourful feathers and gemstone pearls in their hair, shining fur and friendly smiles, making a courteous bow before the relaxed lord as he was sitting on his throne, a hand reached out to the two in an offer of friendship.
The guards accompanying them wielded spears with excessively long tips, almost swords by themselves. They wore metal-braced leather helmets and gambesons. Their hands were covered with intricately joined metal plates that left the inside of the hands, and subsequently their claws, uncovered.
She finally managed to separate herself from the fascination and looked at the rest of the room. There was little else of notice, except for three more doors. One opposite the one she came in and, and as expected, leading to another corridor. The one to the right of the one she had come through led to another, shorter corridor, also lined with paintings. The last one had much bigger and heavier wings. These were the kinds of doors opened by servants on order of a herald or butler, none of which were around.
She put her hand on the door handle. A certain force overcame her. She could feel the serpent protecting her mind tighter than ever before, investing all strength she had into this last line of defence. This was the room she was supposed to enter. She pushed the door open.
The room beyond was a large hall, with a ceiling in almost dizzying heights. Left and right columns supported it in round arches, and windows and skylights at the top let the morning sun flood the hall with light. A long fine carped stretched all the way to the distant end of the hall, where on an pedestal stood not a throne, but a large elegant bed with cushions and blankets. Other than that, she recognized it as the throne room from the paintings.
No one was sitting, or lying, on the throne-bed, but Nannade could tell there was a presence in the room. She took another step inside and let the heavy door wing clunk shut. A clunk that reverberated throughout the hall.
She heard breathing, and humming. A soft female voice was lost alone in the vastness. Then she stepped out from behind one of the columns at the far end of the room. Draped in a deep-red robe without any adornments, luscious red lips, buxom breast under the cloth, and hips so wide, they seemed to be able to birth two children side by side. Her face was a promise of softness and love. She was the woman whose statue stood in the village. She must be the mother to deliver from disease and weakness.
“Welcome Nannade, daughter of Dinessa, daughter of Nannade, daughter of Monalla, daughter of Fridilla, daughter of Dinessa.”
Nannade knew only two of those names. Her own, and the other one, Dinessa. She had heard it whispered only once or twice, by her father to her mother, back when those names were still secret gems treasured by the three of them and known to no one else.
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“So you know who I am?”
The woman smiled as she came closer into the room. “Yes. All motherhood is revealed to me.”
“I guess you are the mother then.”
“Not yet. I hope to be, soon. For now, I am the soil awaiting a seed.”
She stepeed further into the hall. “And you are the reason why this entire island goes crazy?”
“My craving for child and husband cannot be contained by this feeble vessel of flesh, and it only grows with each passing month.”
Nannade took her bow and nocked an arrow. Distance was her friend for now. “I guess you also know why I am here.”
“Yes, I do, but do you?” The she-demon had reached the centre of the carpet, and as Nannade had come closer, she saw that there was a large circular hole in the ground there. She hadn’t seen that on the paintings.
“What kind of asinine question is that?”
“You think you were sent to prove that you can slay me. To prove that you can work with others for a common mission. Well you already failed the latter, loner from the shadows, and you’ll fail the former soon enough.”
Something about her almost enraged Nannade, but there was something soothing as well. The need to explain herself, to justify herself, had vanished. “If you are so knowledgeable, why don’t you tell me what I was sent here for?”
“Answers are not to be given, child. They must be found, come closer and I shall point you a way.”
Nannade stopped. She could feel the demon’s influence getting stronger. She heard Aaka speak up for the first time in a long time. “Don’t go closer, just shoot. This is your chance, take it.”
“What about not helping me all of a sudden?”
“This has become a matter of life and death for the both of us, for the three of us.”
The serpent agreed. Nannade could feel her tightening around her sanity and will, focussing them forward, like an arrow, towards the demon.
The demon came a step closer. Nannade felt her influence lashing against her mind, like a gust of wind in a thunderstorm tearing at the flimsy shelter that was Ssil’s protection.
“NO!” Nannade raised her bow and drew the string all the way back. “I will not allow you to corrupt any more. You are poison, an affront to love and family. You turn hearts of love into slaves to flesh! I will not allow you to make him hate me!”
The demon just chuckled. “I am the source of love and family. I bear no guilt for this, this land began to consume itself in the desire to fulfil my purpose, which has been denied for far too long now.”
The string groaned under the strain next to Nannade’s ear. “I don’t care about guilt.”
“That is a lie and you know it.” She was right. Guilt was why she was here after all.
“I still won’t let you! My love will win over your fakery!”
“And what about those that have brought this about? Do you really think any sane person would create the soil without the seed? And I was still young when the wise ones were trying to create the seed to be planted in me. But the man came and killed the wise ones.”
The string started to strain Nannade’s fingers. “What man? What wise ones?”
“Don’t indulge her, Nannade, END HER!” Aaka pleaded with Nannade.
“The man with the black hair and the pale skin. He and his spider killed the wise ones who were to create the perfect seed for the perfect soil. So humanity could abandon weakness and disease and be reborn.”
Nannade dared not take her eyes of the demon, but she had to. She had to look Aaka in the eyes.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” She asked the spider. “Is this another job he couldn’t take care of properly so he sent me instead?”
The demon spoke up again. “It is penance for his failure. A failure that needed no penance. The failure to kill a scared little girl. He believed me to be good, and he was not wrong. But now that I pose a problem to his name and world, he has changed his mind.”
“Take the shot, Nannade! TAKE IT!” Aaka’s almost screamed at her, full of fright and panic. Nannade could guess why. She had seen her master fail and dreaded what the scared little child, grown into a woman, could do.
Nannade felt it too. This demon’s life was a mistake that needed to be redacted. “You will pay for your cruelty and wickedness, what you have strived for with the life that was spared in mercy!”
“What wickedness? All I strived for was the fulfilment of my purpose, just like you are yearning to kill me, to fulfil your purpose. To not do it would have meant to squander the life that was spared. But the ones who came after the wise ones, they failed, over and over again to distil the perfect seed from the imperfect men that inhabit this land, so my purpose went unfulfilled.”
“So you killed the men! They were not meant to be soldiers or breeding stock. They were just flesh for you!”
The demon took ever more determined steps towards Nannade. Even the serpent cried out to Nannade now. „We are all flesh. To the wolves, to the maggots, to the trees. It is the purpose of flesh to bring forth flesh, and to deny that purpose is to make flesh worth less than dirt! The seed must be planted, or this land's crying out for it will have been in vain! I am not an affront to your nature, to deny me my purpose, that’s the true affront!“
The string pulled heavy, the bow weighed heavier. Nannade felt Ssil’s strength pushed to the limit. Like a tent in the storm, the serpent was blown away by the radiant light that was the Maiden of Fertility, and she took Nannade’s resolution with her. Nannade lowered her bow.
“I can’t.”
Aaka held barely on to her own sanity herself. “YOU FOOL! WHY?”
“She is life. She is future.”
“AND YOU ARE DEATH, IT IS YOUR VOCATION!”
“She is right. There is purpose in her life. Value. What greater deed is there to life than to bring forth life again?”
The Maiden had come closer and all that was left in the world was her love. Her love for her husband, yet to come to her, her love for her children, yet to be born to her, her love for humanity, yet to be entrusted to her.
“I am death. I am nothing but darkness.” Nannade’s knees gave in. Aaka’s voice was blown away in the presence of Her.
Yes, she was death. No life was her dominion and no life would ever grow inside of her. The radiance of the Maiden showed her that.
“The serpent had no interest in the life I could give. Only the death I should deal. Careless, she robbed me.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “Why?”
The Maiden had arrived by Nannade and bowed down to her. She cradled the tearful face in Her hands. “Do not despair, for from the realm of impossibilities she took it from you, and from the realm of impossibilities I can grant it to you.”
Hope was alive in Nannade’s heart. “You?”
“Yes, I! Come with me, I shall show you.”
She lifted Nannade up and with Her arm around her shoulder, lead Nannade to the pool before the steps to the throne-bed. It was large enough for many people to bathe in it and filled with crystal clear waters. Nannade could see the reflection of her teary-eyed self and the Maiden right next to her, gently embracing her like a loving sister.
“You may think yourself lost. But those that walk merely on paths of reality will never fulfil greatness. Resist reality, rebel, rage! And you shall achieve what no one can take from you.”
The Maiden took Nannade’s hand, and pricked Her own finger on her claws. She let the drop of blood fall into the water. The water’s surface rippled and when it came to calm again, she saw only her own reflection. She was smiling and in her arms was a babe. With a coat like the grain before the harvest and eyes like polished brass.
“I want, yes!” Nannade brought forth.
“You want to restore what once was possible? Why, if you could have what was always impossible?” She pricked more of Her fingers and more drops fell into the pool.
This time, Nannade saw herself again, but great, just as the Maiden was. To her side was Olybrius. He stood proud and strong next to her. And in her arms, she held a babe. With naked skin, clawed hands and eyes like smooth clay with a slitted pupil.
“Become my sister, and together we will give birth to a new humanity, free of disease and corruption, free from boundaries. You have seen the cruelty they are capable of. Let us bring forth children that can never be enslaved.”
She cared little for the new humanity. She cared only about Olly. She wanted to love him without shame or guilt or fear. She wanted to gift him that babe. Run away from this place, just away to a hut in the forest and find happiness together there.
“I want, yes!” she said with all her determination. A raging storm was in the back of her mind, writhing, bristling against Her intoxicating love.
“Then you must do something for me too.”
“Whatever you want.”
“I am life and I must bring forth even stronger life. The death you brought must be subservient to life, not its opponent.”
The Maiden put the claws to Nannade’s skin this time and let the drop of blood fall into the pool.
When the water’s surface came to be calm, it showed a hateful visage, the serpent’s visage. Fangs dripping with blood and venom, and a forked tongue that could only speak deceiving lies.
“But to reach that, to make it your subservient, you must go beyond. Stop looking through the water’s surface and go beneath!”
The Maiden gave Nannade a push. She could not regain her balance and hit the water. Her world turned dark, the bright surface fell away from her, out of reach. Would she ever impact on the ground, or just keep sinking?
“But then again, swimming isn’t exactly your forte, is it?”