Malina was beginning to understand what this place was. Not in some mythical sense – the purpose of it was beyond her no matter how much she raked her brain– but the layout, the physical aspect of it, could be understood. And it reminded her of something she had read.
One of her books talked about the theaters in Weningrad. How the greatest of them, the fabled ones like The Selene, could prepare otherworldly scenarios within an hour, transporting the viewer to live between the lines of a script. For one of the plays, the writer had put it, the managers of The Selene had built an entire colosseum so the spectators could see the rise and fall of gladiator characters.
Malina wondered if this is how those actors had felt, standing at the bottom of a gigantic structure, built and enchanted so that even the farthest of spectators could watch the play. She stole a glance upwards, at the cracks on the far away ceiling that illuminated everything, and wondered if they’d blink first.
They didn’t. But Malina still felt that unnerving sensation of being a character under judgment, every action taken into account and every step taken into consideration. When they reached the arch that led them to the deeper, open corridors – like a doll’s house – Malina felt some small satisfaction in being proven right.
“Are those… words?”
Malina nodded in response to Yarrien’s question, adjusting his weight one more time. She wasn’t feeling tired – Gods bless Katia for being so rigorous in training her – but she was concerned about Yarrien’s back. The difference in height between the two meant he had to almost bow to lean on her.
“To be real is to be perceived. How quaint.”
“You can read them?”
Yarrien asked with some surprise, and Malina raised an eyebrow at him.
“You can’t? They are in Plethoria.”
“Not to me, they aren’t.”
Malina narrowed her eyes at the inscription, lookingfor the faint shimmering of a bad illusion – but whatever it was that made it different for each of them, she couldn’t find a clue.
“Let’s go.”
Malina pulled them forward, paying attention to her surroundings. The open hallway made a sharp turn left up ahead, leaving its extension hidden to her, and she saw no further details except for the occasional handle affixed to the stone bricks.
It was when they walked past the arch that it happened. A single step beyond, it must have been – but enough to show commitment to their choice.
At first, there was a rumble, and Malina managed to turn her neck around enough to see the dirt ground part behind her, as if a mason’s chisel had split the earth in two. From the opening, stone came pouring out like bubbling water, rising quickly in place until it touched the top of the arch.
And locked them in. Malina glared at the sudden blockage with vitriol, but not hopelessly. The open corridors meant she could climb the walls in a pinch – and she did have enough materials on her Bag of Holding to make a rope long enough to get them both up. Getting Yarrien to climb without one leg would be a hassle, but Stella had said nothing about a time limit.
It was then that they appeared. The eyes blinked into existence – and Malina would have slapped herself silly for the ungodly pun on any other day – but whatever it was that peered at them through the cracks in the air brought weight with it. A pressure that made Malina’s knees buckle and Yarrien hiss as he leaned on his bad leg to keep them standing. She recovered quickly, but the damage had already been done.
Some of the prying glares shifted to peer at the scene, uncoordinated eyes narrowing vertically as they locked onto Yarrien’s leg, his face, and Malina’s own countenance. Nine eyes, because of course there would be nine of them, looking at them with cold judgement.
Malina didn’t recognize those glares. One eye, almost reptile-like in appearance, focused on her, and all she could notice was that the pupil was horizontal instead of vertical and both edges grew into branching thorns that coiled underneath her skin like a fever dream.
Malina averted her gaze after that. She couldn’t even tell what color they were. Instead of looking any further, the Witch spoke to the only one that would have answers.
“Stella. What are these?”
“I can’t see what you are talking about, Malina. Be more specific.”
“Eyes. Nine of them. Strong magical influence, spatial prowess, hallucinatory effects. No hostility.”
It was a warrior’s assessment. Malina had been trained only partially as one, and that was because Kassia could only bend Rivia so much before her sister fought back, claiming that a fighting Witch was a losing Witch. In the end, Malina had been trained to understand the importance of the body, of being able to flee or fight if necessity arose.
But she had been taught to think like a Witch first, then as a warrior. The young woman thought it was fitting to be precise and clear when she couldn’t give herself the luxury of stopping – when failure meant another debt – but the Witch should have known better.
That’s why when Yarrien spoke, Malina’s cheeks darkened – and she had to remember what she truly was.
“They are crying.”
The young man whispered with sudden clarity, making a full loop past the hallucinations and going back to seeing what was. Malina had to narrow her own eyes, grounding herself with Yarrien’s weight on top of her and the sensation of dirt between her toes, before barging through the sights like a hammer in search of what Yarrien had seen.
And there it was. Tears. Cascading down like waterfalls, flooding the cracks in the air until they fell, soundlessly, onto the floor. Malina saw no dark stain on the ground to prove they had ever existed, but her eyes weren’t lying. From behind the deluge, the glares peered at them, judging still.
“That they are. What…”
She lacked the words to describe how unnerving it was. The pressure was still there, burgeoning down on them and making her sweat, but it felt almost… dispirited. The curiosity in its glare was cold, analytical, as if they were an unwelcomed addition instead of supplicants to the Nameless Ones. There was a sigh from the head hanging around Malina’s neck.
“Another change. Just – don’t worry about it. That’s the Arbiter, the first of your hurdles. Can you walk?”
Malina took a step, filing down the name for later. There was a slight distortion as the eyes blinked out, then appeared once again at the same distance. Was there a change in the air? The Witch wasn’t sure.
“Easy enough.”
“Don’t let your head grow too large. The pressure will increase with every step, so conserve your strength from time to time. Continue onwards, you should see the first statues soon enough.”
Malina nodded, more to herself than anything, and turned to Yarrien.
“Everything alright?”
The young man gave her a roguish grin, his forehead glistening with sweat.
“A bit lightheaded, but nothing much. I’ll warn you if it becomes unbearable.”
“Ensure that you do.”
The duo continued slowly – with wavering steps as they learned how to move with only three functional legs – until they reached the bend where the hallway turned left and found another hallway at its end.
The eyes constantly blinked as they kept that unnerving distance from them. Sometimes they’d shift positions, look at them from above or behind them, once from beneath them and that had made Malina swear up a storm as she stumbled from the scare.
And they never stopped looking. Analyzing. The Arbiter, Stella had called it. Something old enough to be met by the Flesh Matron back when she was just an acolyte of their faith. And still – weeping.
At first it had been unnerving, in that way all great defiance of reality’s laws were to perceive, scarring your mind until you broke or grew resistant to it. Then, after they turned on the bend and met yet another corridor of black stone, Malina grew frustrated.
Why was it crying? She didn’t want to talk to it, that was too much of a risk – but there was a fairly revolting feeling at seeing something so great weep. This was a creature indescribable, strong enough that looking at its eyes had made the Witch’s brain reel in trying to understand it.
And it cried.
By the time Malina and Yarrien reached the fourth corridor and saw there would be at least another one at the end of it, she began to get mad. The pressure had been slowly increasing, leaving her thoughts sluggish and her steps heavy. Her clothes were glued to her back with sweat, the effort of carrying Yarrien’s weight multiplied by the intense aura of the Arbiter.
And she hadn’t had a good night. A bad curse, fleeing the Wildguard, getting wounded, being questioned by Lissandra then Stella, seeing her sister rip off her eyes – those were just some of the things that had happened these past hours. Malina had been raw enough to not look for The Fifth’s solace, fearing his nightmares and how she would react to them, even if he were to promise her rest.
And now things were boiling over again. When a drop of sweat landed on her eye, making them sting, Malina decided she had enough.
“You godsdamned cry baby! Stop with that already! What are you? A child? How are you supposed to judge anything if you can’t see past the tears?”
The Witch had palmed a knife, and was seriously considering throwing one at the eyes, consequences be damned. Malina was a good shot – she was fairly certain she could strike at least one of them before they could react. The eyes, of course, only stared at her, perhaps a smidge of surprise in them – but the tears still spilled out.
Malina snarled, and her blade soared fast enough to whistle as it cut air. She had always preferred small blades, ever since Kassia had shown her the proper form to throw her knives, and the sound they made should have come with the soft thwick of its edge piercing flesh. Then a scream of pain, if her books were right.
Not laughter. When the eyes blinked off existence, dodging the blade by simply not being there before reappearing, Yarrien began to laugh. Malina turned towards him, and saw the young man clean a tear from the corner of his eye.
“That was… Gods Below, I needed that.”
Malina grumbled, slightly put off.
“I’m gonna get it next time.”
“I’ll sell tickets for it. Maybe set up a booth? Malina’s Ensorcelled Daggers. It would get a pretty penny. We could make a circuswoman out of you, Mal.”
“Tsk. It wouldn’t last long, I dislike travelling.”
Yarrien raised his nose to the ceiling, putting on airs.
“Hmph. City people. The road is where life is at.”
“I much prefer a good bed and not having to sleep under the stars, thank you very much.”
“Shitting on a bush builds your character like nothing else. You just like being pampered.”
Malina threw him a grin, tasting salt on her lips.
“I never said otherwise.”
Silence settled between the two after that with surprising comfort. The grunts of exertion as the pressure on their shoulders increased were still there, of course, but Malina… fidgeted.
Surprisingly, she was the first one to breach the quiet.
“You know, I’ve never been to one.”
“Hm?”
“A circus, I mean. Never been to. There were some back in Lyra, I think – but I was too young.”
Yarrien cocked his head, exposing the faint darker rings on his pale neck.
“I’d have thought Pleariss would have many of them. Being the City of Encounters, and all that.”
Malina chuckled. That title was half of a joke. Pleariss, City of Fleecing Encounters – because the merchants of it wouldn’t hesitate to have you pay gold for a sack of potatoes if they knew you needed them.
“I guess farmers make for bad clientele. There must have been some, but I never looked into it. And I don’t think I’d like it much.”
The idea of someone joking at her expense and her having to laugh it out? Malina wanted to crawl out of her skin at the embarrassment. Yarrien nodded sagely.
“Yeah. I can see that.”
The Witch grunted. They were turning another corner now, and Malina tried not to feel too dispirited at the sight of another long corridor. She paused for a second, catching her breath while Yarrien kept talking.
“We’ve met a few of them on the road. Very kind folk most of the time – a little silly, but I just think they make spectacles for so long that every day ends up looking like one. Uncle loves them because they are really good for business in a pinch.”
“Really?”
“Uhum. They perform to a lot of nobles, and that means a lot of gifts from them. But jewelry and diamonds have little use on the road, you know. So when we meet one of them, they will usually trade them for supplies. Food, clothing… lots of paint.”
“Huh. I thought Uncle Revold only dealt in Sorcery.”
“Artifacts and Cores are what we are known for, yes, but we are merchants. We deal in everything under the sun. Well, almost everything.”
His face soured for a moment, but that soon faded. Malina watched the change with interest, but didn’t comment on it.
“What’s the craziest thing you’ve sold someone?”
They were turning on another corner now, chatting amicably. The corridor looked just like all the others, and the eyes showed no sign of a change as well. Malina settled for a bit more walking, though her breaths were becoming more and more haggard – and if she was struggling, even with all her training, then she could only commend Yarrien for not letting his exertion more transparent.
“On my own? Hm… Oh, I know. I sold an Artifact in Lanirav – it was this wooden mask, covered in barnacles. Made you sink like a stone if you had it on.”
“Huh. And the cost?”
Malina only knew one thing or another about Sorcerous Artifacts. The Coven didn’t have many of them on display –– and that meant she rarely got in contact with one. Still, she had learned how they worked.
“You stunk like a dead fish left under the summer sun. Just for as long as you have it on though, so a minor cost all in all. But the effect was pretty simple as well. It’s just… the buyer was a Sphinx.”
Ah. Malina could see why it was odd. A Sphinx’s large body meant they could easily sink if they wanted to – but the combination of water and feathers meant she had never heard of one adept in underwater combat. The fact one would pay so much for such a simple Artifact, when they could easily emulate the effects by simply holding a few stones, was weird.
“Okay, that’s awkward. But I’ve got another question.”
Yarrien raised an eyebrow at her, and took half a dozen shallow breaths before speaking. Even his good leg was trembling now, making his footing unstable.
“Shoot.”
“Which Core will you take? When you fix your leg, I mean. You never wrote about it.”
They took another step, and Yarrien’s sudden silence continued onwards. Malina’s cheeks grew dark again.
“I know it’s pretty personal, I didn’t mean to–”
“Oh. No, no, don’t worry about it. Um, I was just surprised.”
“...Surprised?”
The young man threw her a cheeky grin.
“Who would have thought there’d come a day the mighty Malina Vizar would be curious about silly old me?”
“I’m gonna leave you here.”
She began to move his hand off her shoulder, and Yarrien locked onto her like a tick, laughing all the while.
“Sorry, sorry! Ow, come on. There we go. And I did think about it. There’re just… so many possibilities.”
“Not that many.”
“Bah, you’re born a Witch. With all due respect, it’s not something you’ve ever had to consider.”
Malina would grant him that. He was right, after all – being born with a Core meant she had her path cut out for her pretty early on, but there was more of a choice behind it than most people thought. Still, she didn’t correct him.
“I got pretty torn between Bard or Cleric. Mage has its appeal, but learning how to be one can get expensive – and Grimlair still isn’t accepting any Palefolk.”
And he wanted to be good. Malina understood the feeling. Grimlair was the best of the Caster Academies for a reason, but they could get pretty silly with their requirements.
“Which did you choose?”
“Cleric. The life of a Bard sounds nice, don’t get me wrong, but… I’m not that artistic. And like with Mages, I wouldn’t know where to begin. I can’t even play an instrument. And with the Coven around, I thought I could learn enough to start things. Plus, I want to repay them.”
The Coven or The Pantheon. Malina wasn’t certain, but she could understand the feeling. Gods knew she’d probably make the same choice as him.
The duo reached the end of the newest corridor, the eyes trailing behind them this time – and Malina saw the wall suddenly open into a circular room much like the first one they had fallen into. She blinked, twice, rubbed her eyes with one hand – and the scene remained.
“What the…”
“Huh. I guess… Did we even do anything?”
Malina bit down her lip. She didn’t understand what was going on. She had been ready to keep on walking until Yarrien fell, then carry him onwards through the rest of the track. For it to end, just like that, was almost offensive to her.
The pressure had abated however – and though the Arbiter was still following their every move, they welcomed the easy breathing that came with the end of the corridors. When Malina looked at what was in the new room, pulling on the tight collar of her dress to let some air in, she understood Stella’s earlier commentary – not that it did anything to make things clear.
The duo took a moment to admire the five statues that rested in the middle of the room. Laid out in a circle, their shape and details had been slowly degraded over time, stone turning into dust and leaving behind featureless heads of white marble, contrasting with the darkness of the walls. Their bodies, however, were relatively preserved – and the similar outfits they all sported spoke of a common inspiration in their making.
They approached, Malina’s eyes darting around for danger, though she found nothing but the new additions. Yarrien, however, had his eyes locked on something else.
“Look.”
The young man pointed, and Malina saw it as well. Beside the statues there were two small craters on the dirt floor, shaped just like the ones they had made when they fell. And certainly, the very same ones.
“Spatial magic. Powerful stuff. Was it just buying time to do this?”
Malina stared at the Arbiter, the crying eyes at the same usual distance, focused on different parts of them. With a shudder, they approached the statues, and Malina called for her older sister.
“Stella? Are you there? We found the statues. What do we do now?”
There was a tremor against her chest as the undead piece moved, its soft jaw opening.
“There should be instructions around there, somewhere. How many appeared for you?”
“Five. But I can’t recognize… most of them.”
There was a larger one Malina was certain belonged to an Arachne. The eight insectoid legs and the sheer size of it was a dead give away, even if she had never seen one in person. All the statues looked female, or at least gave that distinct impression. Without thinking much about it, the Witch turned to try and search for a clue, and quickly found something gleaming in the middle of the pieces, half-covered in dirt. When they approached, Malina saw a small plaque, made of aged bronze.
“Found it. ‘To be perceived is to be…’. There’s a blank after that. Can you read this, Yarrien?”
“No. But… wait, what was it that was written on that first arch? Wasn’t it something like that?”
Malina remembered the words with a frown. To be real is to be perceived. She had thought it was a warning about the Arbiter’s constant voyeurism – but if that was a clue, then…
The Witch’s eyes snapped up, past the statues, and to the blocked arch they had walked through at first, now both in front and behind them. Her eyes read the words on it, and like she suspected, they were different.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“To be broken is to be remade.”
The answer was, then, quite logical. There was no great puzzle to it – but Malina still grinned widely as she understood what it meant.
She had been feeling quite peeved after all.
***
Malina didn’t consider herself an angry person.
She grew frustrated quickly, yes, and when things went wrong she could get… petty – but that was not anger like she usually thought of it.
As a young girl, she had seen true wrath in Rivia’s pacing, back when all of them lived in a too small apartment in Lyra. Whenever her eldest sister had a bad dream, she would rise from her bed and pace down the single corridor of their home like a haunting – again and again until she carved wedges on the old wooden floor or their downstairs neighbors shouted at them to go to sleep.
One day, when that happened, Malina saw Rivia’s face during her midnight pacing. She had been woken up by the tapping of bare feet on wood, her sleep easily disturbed even for the Drow she was. From the slightly ajar door of her bedroom – the same one she shared with Charlotte, Gizmo and Kassia, all of them usually sleeping in a pile over single beds that had been pushed together – the young girl witnessed anger.
Rivia was steely on a good day, austere in appearance and clothing even after all the money they managed to accumulate to move to Pleariss. That night, her short blonde hair had been braided, and her limbs poked out of the simple gray tunic she always wore to sleep. Rivia was short for a human woman and the thickness to her body would have made her look matronly if she only smiled.
She didn’t. Her face was always either impassive or slightly annoyed. On bad days, her lips would pucker and she would frown for a second before her expression smoothed over unnaturally, pinched back into place. On good ones? Malina would see an eyebrow rise, and a corner of her lips twitch.
Tonight, though, Malina saw Rivia snarl.
Her eyes were wide, gray irises almost hidden by her pupils. She looked feverish, red blushing her pudgy cheeks and sweat beading on her neck. Her mouth was slightly open, and Rivia huffed as if struggling to draw breath, her inhales loud and quick as she stood with her shoulders tense, her back hunched as if she were double her age.
And she was speaking. In a language that Malina couldn’t understand, but that made her bones want to crawl out of her skin, Rivia repeated the same word over and over – a mantra that reverberated down the dimly-lit corridor and made Malina retreat in a hurry and tuck herself against Kassia’s side, shivering until dawn came.
So that was anger to her. True anger. What made Malina climb on top of the Arachne’s statue and walk over the dilapidated stone, was something else.
A lesser version of it. A mix of frustration, anger, yes, and godsdamned satisfaction as she imagined discounting all those pent up emotions on something.
Malina knew what she had to do. To be perceived is to be broken. Completing the sentence had been easy and, well, she was ready to break things – but something was still nagging on her mind.
Had she forgotten something? The Arbiter’s eyes were still peering at her – or at least half of them were, the other half blinking around Yarrien’s sitting form as he rested against a wall – and they were still crying ceaselessly, tears fading from thin air. Malina could read no emotion behind her eldritch voyeur’s gaze – but something told her that the answer wasn’t with it either way.
No, what kept pushing her to think was something else. A learned instinct, the same one she had been taught to hone as a young girl describing the dozen Meanings a leaf could have. These were her years of accumulated lessons, of nights listing down the properties of common ingredients until her hand cramped – and it was telling her the idea was incomplete.
Malina narrowed her eyes. She stood above the statue, bare feet touching cold white marble, balanced atop the bulbous lower half of the Arachne with a thoughtful look on her face. The Witch stared at the blank slates that were the faces of the other statues, their features eroded by time, and felt it click.
She was ready to break things – but she had done very little perceiving hadn’t she?
With a slight touch to the thing hanging from her neck, Malina called for the only one that would be able to answer her.
“Stella? Are you there?”
The voice came with that same slightly peeved tone of always.
“I am. Have you two figured it out yet?”
“Maybe. Who are these people, Stella? Are they… like us?”
That was the only possibility that made sense for them to be here. The Augury of Genesis was a sacred ground – and Malina couldn’t believe any but the most faithful would be represented in statues.
“They are. They were. In the Augury, those that failed to become Priests of The Nameless Ones have their attempts immortalized so that the next generations will know that our purpose is a heavy one.”
“These are… the Initiated?”
Like her and Yarrien. She could hear the slight smile on Stella’s voice.
“Those that crumbled under the weight of their attention. Those that stumbled under the love of our Gods. During the Initiation, all neophytes are exempt from receiving the Elder’s Embrace – instead, the Nameless Ones take over their afterlife. They keep them safe, resting, so that no one can disturb the eternal sleep of their faithful.”
Malina shivered. All her life she had heard of the teachings of the Three-In-One, and though he was not one of her Gods, she knew all of the living would eventually go towards the Elder’s domain when their time in the mortal plane ended. To think that she wouldn’t – that her soul would be kept here, asleep for eternity if she died during the next few days…
The Witch looked at Yarrien, and in the silence of The Augury it was easy for him to listen to their conversation. They shared a look, and Malina took a deep breath to calm down her heart.
“Then, who are they? If these are the faithful, why would they want us to destroy their… images…”
Silently, an idea bloomed. Death and statues. The Three-In-One and his fabled faces, one of them able to separate what was spiritual from the flesh, keeping it locked away within an object. It was a ludicrous notion – but Witches often worked with what many would consider impossible, even in the realm of magic. Malina’s voice quieted down, and she shivered as she spoke.
“These aren’t statues, are they?”
Yarrien was frowning at her, confused – but Malina had no time to explain. Instead she waited for Stella’s answer.
“No. They aren’t only that.”
It felt like a hammer to the back of her head. Malina stumbled on top of the statue, slipped, and suddenly stopped feeling excited at the idea of destroying them.
“What are you talking about, Mal?”
The Witch took a second to settle herself.
“Souls. These are souls. They want us to… break them? Destroy them?”
Her heart grew cold. This type of death was the one the Elder abhorred the most. It would be such a ludicrous offense to the Three-In-One that Malina had no doubt the Lich himself would drag her to the Beyond the second she stepped out of this place.
Stella’s laughter managed to pierce through her spiraling thoughts.
“Oh, don’t be silly, you two. You couldn’t destroy a soul even if you really wanted to. No, that’s not what will happen. Those that failed are asleep, Malina, and in death The Fifth guides their dreams. Some, the oldest of failures usually, dream of returning. And those that enter the Augury can grant that to them.”
Yarrien spoke hesitantly.
“Resurrection? I thought that was a myth.”
“No, not that. Reincarnation. A new chance to walk the mortal world. But they can’t bring what they know with them – so that must be broken up first. We can’t have babies claiming they are from thousands of years past going around, can we?”
Malina bit her lip as she listened. She could see worry in Yarrien's eyes, and knew he could see the same on her own.
“Won’t The Ninth be angry at us if we do that? We shouldn’t… This feels like an offense, sister.”
“The Ninth understands the need, Malina, and their memories are buried in the sands regardless of what you do over there. The owners of those memories understand the cost. But don’t worry too much – this is still a choice you two can make. It’s the kinder option, of course, but there’s more than one thing that can break within that room, isn’t there?”
The Witch looked at Yarrien’s leg and understood. A limb, maybe a finger. What a choice. Yarrien frowned at the speaking head.
“Did anyone ever choose that?”
Stella’s laughter was their only response. Malina shook her head, trying to clear her mind.
“Alright, then. If that’s what they want, then I see no reason to deny it. Yarrien?”
The young man blinked at her.
“I… won’t be of much help – but I don’t want to break another bone, so there’s that.”
Malina found the energy to chuckle. The pressure had faded, but her body was still tired from the time they stayed under its weight.
“I can share the sentiment. Let’s do this then. Stella, how much should we break them?”
“A killing blow, perhaps? That would be enough.”
Malina nodded, more to her own comfort than anything, and walked again towards the Arachne. Did those limbs twitch when she got close? The Witch couldn’t tell – maybe her mind was playing tricks on her, the situation setting fire to her nerves.
She wasn’t killing them. Malina had to reaffirm that. This wasn’t murder – they were already dead. She had already done a good job in not thinking about what five women lost to the Initiation meant, and that was a miracle all on its own, but now this felt… personal.
She would have preferred not knowing. When she had been angry, they were just statues to break. Now the pieces were all on display, and the image they made was a grim one.
Malina hadn’t told Yarrien. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t – she wasn’t certain of how much of their faith’s or her School’s story the young man actually knew of – but the Witch was certain there were at least centuries since anyone was initiated to the Nameless Ones.
And she couldn’t imagine waiting for that long. When her sisters were young, there’d be new Priests every year – which meant the souls of those in The Augury could go back to the mortal plane soon enough, if they so wanted. But now?
Malina wondered what spending centuries craving release would do to someone.
She prayed under her breath, then. A simple request to The Third, so that she could instill onto the world one of the Goddess's core virtues.
“Merciful Third, guide my hand. May these souls find solace under your wings.”
There was no answer. With her heart settled, she began.
***
Malina was quiet as she prepared herself, frozen on top of the Arachne’s statue once again. Yarrien tried not to feel too useless. He sat up properly with his legs straight forwards, smiled like Uncle Revold had taught him whenever Malina sneaked a look at him, and kept his pain hidden through years of expertise.
Malina wasn’t the only one that could lie. She was… alright at it. Yarrien was certain she wouldn’t live a day in the Merchant’s Guild without being fleeced for every bit of coin she had, though – then she’d set fire to the building after she learned she had been duped. That’s just how she was, his soon-to-be-sister.
Yarrien, though, had learned from one of the greatest. Uncle Revold was humble, but the young man had learned as a child that none of the Palefolk could ever manage to escape Treiss without being the best at what they did. His uncle had latched onto every opportunity like a leech, sucking everything dry until only brittle bone and dried skin was left.
A gruesome comparison – but Yarrien was in a bit of a foul mood. Learning that his cursed surname was needed to properly ground his identity had been a blow he hadn’t seen coming. Not the first one he had gotten tonight – his conversation with Stella had nearly broken him, even if the Priestess wielded only kindness against him – but it was the one strike that stung the most.
Even now, with his leg pulsing in pain and the shards of his shattered shin digging deeper into atrophied muscles every time he breathed, his mind kept returning to it.
Ofricken. A blight upon himself, worse than the Rot.
Malina seemed to have settled herself enough to make a move, and tried to covertly sneak in a look at him. Those purple depths surrounded by platinum eyelashes showed certainty and barely hidden concern underneath it all. Yarrien didn’t think she even realized how transparent she was sometimes.
He blamed it on her being a Witch. They were all painfully honest, though rarely truthful – there was an important difference there that cleverer men than him could expand upon – and Malina had been raised by some of the best Witches remaining, so it was no surprise that she had a quirk or two. If anything, Yarrien was glad she had come out so… mortal.
He would know. His Uncle had traded Cores and Artifacts with people from most parts of the world, and had brought his nephew with him for the past decade. Yarrien had seen what Sorcery could do to someone, and though it could be beautiful from time to time, it was always a grim type of beauty.
But it was the only solution for him.
There really was no other option. Yarrien found some comfort in that. His Uncle had done everything he could to find a cure, or at least a solution that didn’t involve him losing the limb. They had gone everywhere and talked to anyone willing to listen, and from the Alchemists of The Marblehalls to the Order of The Carrion Fly, all they heard was the exact same thing. A sentence that haunted Yarrien’s dreams whenever he had a nicer nightmare than the usual one.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
A hundred people saying the same six words for seven years. Sometimes the pronoun changed – we, I, you if they really saw no hope – but the message was clear. And it wasn’ t a money problem either. The amount of coin his uncle had thrown at the problem, trying to drown the disease with the glinting shine of gold, had been enough to rebuild their business a dozen times over.
A king’s bounty for a cure, Uncle Revold had joked once. And all of that for nothing, at least until a veiled woman came to kill the both of them.
By the time they realized what was happening, they were already part of something much larger than they had ever dreamed of. Uncle and nephew had been conscripted to help – then, they learned there was no better place to be than beneath the eyes of the Nameless Ones –nd in return, the Coven tried to give them everything they needed and could not buy with money.
A remedy. A way to stop the slow rotting of his leg from crawling up his thigh and reaching something essential. The Coven, funnily enough, had been painfully honest with their initial assessment at the time. Rivia and Charlotte had told the both of them that there might be a solution, but it would have to be perfected slowly and they couldn’t tell how, exactly, it would affect Yarrien – but by the Gods Below, it had been a small price to pay.
From the bubbling cauldron of the Coven’s Hag, came a solution so foul in taste and so disgusting in color that Yarrien’s stomach convulsed at thememory of that first version. It had glued onto his throat when he drank it, latching onto the back of his tongue like tar before he coughed half of it out and swallowed the rest. Regardless of the taste, the young man had been so desperate he had licked the floor of Charlotte’s workshop before they could react.
Then it had turned into a routine. Once a week, the young man would drink the medicine – and every time he and his Uncle returned to Pleariss, they would restock on it, always asking for extra in case things went awry suddenly. The Rot was an insidious disease, and what Yarrien had done to himself meant he was much more propense to dying the quick way instead of the slow one.
Because there was more than one way to die from it. Both of them were kept in check by the medicine, but it didn’t take off the razor’s edge that he had always dreaded and still walked on top of.
That’s why he had been desperate enough to lick the dirty floor for a scrap of a remedy that could very well not work, and that’s why he weathered the counter effects of every dosage of the medicine with relief, no matter how hard it was sometimes.
It had taken even a great Witch like Charlotte years to perfect the formula. At the beginning, Yarrien couldn’t even stay on his feet as the medicine did its job – the sudden bouts of dizziness and nausea made him an even paler husk of himself, and he would lose hours trying to hold whatever he had eaten in his stomach before eventually losing the battle. Then, when the nausea passed and his throat burned from bile, the drowsiness came – and he would sleep through nightmares aplenty.
Months of that. His weeks had been reduced to just one or two days of actual work, the remaining five being spent inside his Uncle’s wagon or atop a bed, asleep or kneeling in front of a bucket. Yarrien had gotten so thin at a certain point that Charlotte had to put him on a strict diet so that he wouldn’t die of the treatment instead of the disease.
There was a sound in front of him, and Yarrien shook his head as the sudden trip down memory lane was left behind. The young man placed his smile back, shoved those awful days back into the box he had made for them, and watched what Malina was doing once again, slowly understanding her intentions.
The Witch took a step to the right, still on top of the statue. With narrowed eyes, the young woman aligned herself with one of the giant, insectoid legs that kept the ancient statue standing – and jumped.
Feet first, straight onto the joint. There was a snap, softer than he expected, as the old stone crumbled under Malina’s weight. The Witch hadn’t stopped moving though, and with the same focus that propelled her at first, she rolled away from the statue.
Once, twice, spending her momentum in a search for safety with surprising flexibility before she looked up – and noticed that the statue was still standing, though with only seven legs instead of eight.
Ah. She had been worried about being crushed. Yarrien realized quickly, though he wondered why go through all this hassle when she could just cast a–
No magic. Right. The young man bit the inside of his cheeks, but let go of the thought soon enough. Whatever indignation he might have felt would have paled in front of Malina’s own reprobations if he knew her well.
So why was she going through all this hassle?
Yarrien continued to watch in silence as the Witch got close to the leg, squatted as if about to hold a great weight, and lifted it with surprising ease – enough to make her stumble back in surprise and fall onto her behind, the stone leg on top of her. A snicker even managed to escape his facade, making Malina turn with narrowed eyes to look at him before he raised his hands in an apology.
The Witch forgave him with a click of her tongue. Malina pushed the leg from above her and got up, dusting herself with her hands. When she went to grab the leg once again, it was with much less strength.
“It’s light.”
Malina held the piece with both hands like a spear, swinging it around for a moment. The sharp stone made a swishing sound Yarrien had learned to equate with a sharp blade cutting the air – and though the sight of the Witch wielding a decepated member like a lance was incredible all on its own, it was another detail that robbed his attention.
There, on the stump, where the joint had been rendered into dust by Malina’s jump, something was coming out. Yarrien worried for a second, thinking it would be an attack, but there was just… a haze. Like a heat distortion, rising from the wound and making the air wobbly.
It continued to flow for a few seconds, a show of lightless iridescence, before it faded into the air like it had never existed.
Yarrien kept quiet about it, instead speaking of something else.
“I didn’t know you knew how to use spears.”
The Witch scoffed, tried to spin the leg around herself, and lost her grip on the limb. Yarrien had to cough on his own hands to stop himself from laughing as Malina’s cheeks turned a darker shade of gray.
“Ahem. I don’t. But it can’t be that hard, right? Just stab them with the sharp end. No wonder it’s a soldier’s weapon.”
She mused aloud and Yarrien raised an eyebrow at the commentary.
“There are at least a hundred spearmasters that would have your head for that, just saying.”
“Bah. They aren’t here to complain, are they? And this is an easier weapon. I could master it.”
Yarrien sighed as he watched the young woman appraise the limb with the confidence of the ignorant. He shook his head.
“Whatever you say. So, what are you going to do with it?”
“Ah. I do wonder what a spear is for. Maybe clean my ears with it?”
She replied mockingly, and Yarrien rolled his eyes.
“C’mon, Mal. Humor me. Aren’t you at least a little nervous about all of this?”
There was a beat of silence before she replied, Malina’s eyes staring at something far away before they focused back on him with grim determination. Yarrien couldn’t find it in himself to like that look. There’s too much weight on her.
“It’s necessary.”
The words were final, and the young man nodded with the same amiable smile of always. In the quiet after, Malina moved and set her stance in front of another statue. Did she see something up close? Yarrien couldn’t tell, but he noticed her grip on the limb was white with tension.
Under her breath, Malina muttered something before advancing, thrusting the leg forward – and making Yarrien frown. He thought wielding it like a club would be better than trying to stab solid stone, but to his surprise Malina’s attack worked.
Maybe it was luck and the Witch had found a crack on the stone that made it easier for her to run the statue through – but Yarrien discarded the idea after seeing how she reacted to it. Malina’s shiver was visible, her face losing color as the vibrations of the strike traversed through the improvised weapon, and the young man wondered what it would feel like to stab flesh.
Regardless, it was a killing blow, just like Stella recommended. Yarrien watched in a trance as the statue looked up, shoulders slumping in relief, and crumbled into dust in front of her. A sudden wind picked up the remains and scattered it away – the first breeze they had felt ever since they entered the Augury – and all that was left behind was the same distinct haze in the air.
Then, that dissipated as well, and the statue turned into a memory of them.
Yarrien’s eyes diverted from the palace where it had stood and instead focused on Malina. The Witch was trembling, sweat beading on her neck, and before he realized it he had already spoken.
“You alright, Mal?”
He noticed her grip tightening, and when she turned to look at him her eyes were shadowed. She nodded–
–But said nothing else. The lack of any biting commentary made him worried – but Yarrien didn’t interfere. Useless as he was, the least he could do was let her work quickly and in peace.
Malina did rapid work of the rest after that. Her blows were calculated, aiming for the heart, though she usually missed and ended up running the statues through the gut instead. Luckily, there was no complaint from the dead souls, but Yarrien worried about the grimness that surrounded the Witch with every stab.
She looked dead herself. Malina was panting by the time the fourth statue turned into dust, her lower lip raw and swollen from how much she bit it. Her knees were weak – but still, Yarrien saw her rise for that final blow. This time, the young woman had to angle the spear’s tip upwards to find proper leverage, the difference in height and size with the faceless Arachne making her more tiresome to attack.
There was no other impediment, however. Like a hot knife through butter, Malina ran through the female torso of the Arachne with the woman’s own leg – and though the scene would be a grim one any other day, Yarrien saw only relief on the statue’s countenance as a new beginning came for it.
He saw a tear escape Malina’s eyes, rolling down her face, and immediately looked away – up, at the broken lights that illuminated this place.
This… felt like a good action – and at the same time, Yarrien had to admit, he was glad he wasn’t the one to do it. He had enough skeletons in his closet already, and adding these five would make it far more cramped than he was willing to.
Even if they had wanted it. Even if they were now free to walk the mortal plane, which he didn’t find all that great – but then again, it hadn’t been his choice to make. The young man smiled at nothing, and for a second, sad as it was, enjoyed not being the one having to make bad choices for once.
***
Malina could barely see through the unshed tears. Her fingers were limp and weak as the tension in them faded and left only soreness behind. She had gripped the… leg… with such strength in her nervousness that now her hands could barely close into a fist.
Maybe she had been too arrogant when she said the spear was easy. The sensation of poking the softness of flesh, a soundless squelch that one felt through the weapon’s length and up their arms, was not something for the weak.
The Witch blinked, and lost her fight to the tears. They dropped straight to the ground, darkening a spot of dirt as she hung her head low. Quickly, Malina used the back of her hands to clean the trail left behind by the previous ones – those that had been too surprising for her to react – and took in a shuddering breath.
She was glad it was over. Gods Below, even with all the stability that the prayer to The Third had given her, it had almost not been enough. Thoughts of mercy were trailed by a shadow that whispered of murder to her ears. The fact the statues were playing tricks on her didn’t make things easy either.
Malina kept seeing her traitorous friends’ faces on the blank marble. Even though all of the souls had been female, even though they looked so different from them even without any features, she still saw Andrika and Lero snarling at her as the leg ran them through. Then, like a ripple in the water, the image dissipated – and Malina saw only relief on the statue’s countenance as it broke into fine dust.
It was that instant that kept her going – the sudden lack of tension on the tip of the spear as what felt like muscles relaxed and only freedom was left on the statues. It helped her through the realization that whatever was going on with the sudden images of her victims was not a trick of her mind, but something entirely purposeful.
Malina only admitted that the third time it happened, however. She saw Enia’s face appear with a silent scream the moment the spear stabbed between the statue’s ribs, then dissipate suddenly and leave only dust behind.
The fourth time happened when she went to impale a statue with Voster’s face, and the young man tried to spit on her in defiance before the sudden gust took the illusion along with what little remained of the stone. Malina was so shaken by it all she had barely noticed the faint mirage-like distortion that the statues left behind – echoes of the souls that had been trapped in here, waiting for someone like her to take the burden.
And what a heavy weight it was. When the time came for her to strike the Arachne, her weapon felt like it was five times its weight on her hands. She had no strength left to run for an attack, the energy in her body dissipating far faster now than when she had been under the Arbiter’s gaze.
Instead Malina looked up, focused on the tip of that giant leg, and stabbed upwards without a stance or proper form. An amateur move that made Falin’s face bite at her, lashing out soundlessly, then disappear alongside the largest of the statues and her improvised lance.
And so an old Coven found release. Malina wasn’t blind. Five women going through the Initiation together? Their clothes so similar they might as well be wearing the same things? She stared at the nothing that proved they had existed, and felt her heart ache.
An entire Coven had failed before her. Ancient Dark Muses that had access to the true ways of their kind had tried to prove themselves to her Gods and died.
Malina could taste bile on her tongue, and felt her eyes pinprick again.
With a shuddering sigh, she cleaned her face once more. Her feet were unsteady when she rose – Malina hadn’t even noticed she had fallen to her knees – and when she finally felt more centered, the young woman whispered.
“Praised… praised be the Granter of Mercy, for her edge is kind. May I savour what I have given when the time comes.”
Nothing happened, and Malina’s shoulders slumped when she understood that. Her walk towards Yarrien was slow, but she gritted her teeth and made it through, the young man looking at her with complicated eyes.
He said nothing when she helped him to his feet – just a few pats to her shoulder in solidarity, which only made her heart beat quicker and her teeth sink on her already abused lips. The young woman bore his weight with a huff, and together they looked forward to the arch leading them beyond.
The words above it were still the same – To be broken is to be remade – and their voyeuristic companion had joined all of its eyes to better watch them move, the Arbiter’s gaze as tearful as always. Beyond it, however, where liquid stone had once risen to block their path, now only a veil of darkness was left, blocking their vision of what came after.
The blackness was so profound it was cold to look at, like opening your eyes beneath frigid waters and feeling that bite as your eyeballs threatened to shrink. Malina understood what this trek of their journey meant with ease.
“Trust.”
She whispered the word and felt Yarrien nod at her side. Their Gods lay just beyond the veil, and it would be their choice to walk past it. But the end of the sentence scared her.
Change. They promised that. A type of metamorphosis, like a butterfly inside its cocoon. When she looked at Yarrien, covertly, the young man looked almost excited to undergo this part of the journey – and she wanted nothing more than to join him on that giddiness.
But instead… Malina walked forward with slow steps, her body tired and her sore heart weighing like lead on her chest. She wasn’t doubting them – never that – but the Nameless Gods demanded a healthy dose of trepidation, and she could only imagine what they would make of her.
What would the perfect Malina in their eyes look like? Should she strive towards it? That felt right – what greater glory was there than being remade under their gentle care?
Malina reached the darkness and stopped. The void beckoned her in its stillness, a frozen emptiness. Yarrien, mindlessly, leaned forward towards it, and she saw the appeal of greatness appear clearly on his face.
That was the joy she wanted. With a sigh, Malina did what she had been raised to do.
Her body plummeted through the darkness without a sound.