It was raining. The water fell unrelentingly on every leaf, swelling every tiny brook. It soaked into the bones of men, drenching the hide of flayed horses. It quenched but failed to conquer the smoldering ash and the smell of charred woods and flesh.

All this Cordelia beheld with scant awareness. As though the realm of dreams and fancies still had its hold on her consciousness after a long, long sleep. But eventually, her mind grew lucid enough to register the wetness and freezing chill seeping into her fabric and bones, the burden of something against her back. She gasped in pain.

The smoke and terrible stench of burned things assaulted her lungs as she heaved a deep breath. She tried to push with her hands and feet without knowing what it was that weighed her back so. She was lying supine, the wooden panel of a structure blocked the front of her vision. But through the gap between it and the thing she lay under, she could see strewing bodies of umoving men and beasts of burden. Their stench would have been unbearable had she not been in so great a panic of being stuck. In desperation, her lean arms reached out to seize a protruded corner of the panel in front. With much awkward push and pull at length, she managed to wrench herself free from under the heavy mass. Scratched and sore all over with gashes big and small, she clung to the wooden structure and crawled to her feet.

It was a stagecoach toppled. And near to it was the smaller wagon she had been stuck under. The sprawling leg of a fallen horse had propped it to an angle, just enough to press her body tight to the earth without crushing it to a gory mess.

For some minutes the girl stood mazed, staring without comprehension at the couple of toppled vehicles, the seemingly unreal bodies. Dead bodies. Lifeless corpses. The rain could not wash away the dark taints, nor had it diluted the black pools under these strangers of unfamiliar garbs. She stared transfixed like one seeing a movie or a play, a thing happened to someone else. Nor with the next sweeping scan of her surroundings could she locate herself or give context to her circumstance. It was a sort of a desolated dirt road. On either side of it were thick woods of trees and plants she could not name.

Since it was the sensible thing to do, Cordelia began to examine her own condition. Her clothes were a tattered affair of rough spun bodice and skirt. These chafed at her skin unpleasantly, and smelled as though it had been stolen from a dead body. Of accessories, there was but one.

She cried out, stumbled and struck her back on the fallen stagecoach. What she had thought on her wrist an innocuous bracelet of stark whiteness, ill-fitting the rest of her threadbare outfit, was writhing and coiling alive.

Even as she swung her arm madly, two blood-red crystals stared back.

The tiny jaws opened, a forked tongue slid past keen fangs. From there came a voice.

“Peace, mistress!” it hissed.

Cordelia found herself once more on the ground, extending the hand as far from her body as could. Snake. Right. Snake. She recalled the dream. A dream between lives. It also provided the only explanation for her current situation.

“You are with that thing, the World Serpent,” she ventured.

“That’s a fair sweeping statement though true, Mistress,” it hissed, “all snakes serve the Lord of Serpents, and all feys answer to the Dark Master, whom Jormungandr serves. But I am here at your command.” It inclined the little head, in a gesture which she assumed was meant to simulate a humanly bow. “Well met, Mistress Cordelia. I am called Mastema, henceforth thy familiar.”

“Right, familiar,” she said curtly, recalling the reference writ on the tablet.

Snakeling Poison: Once a day, command your viper familiar to inflict a poison with a small chance of causing instant death to a mortal.

“I thought you only come once a day? Did I accidentally...”

“Nay,” it cut her off rudely, “I may only poison your foe once, but as your familiar my services of counsels and wit are ever at your beckon! But let us leave that aside for the moment. You have not time. Arm yourself!”

“Arm?” she asked foolishly.

“My first counsel: you stand in the wilds where a bloodshed hath just been done. First thing to concern yourself: self-preservation!”

“All right, all right,” she grumbled, but the caution was sound and she grew afraid. It seemed indeed the middle of nowhere, and these corpses no doubt had met violent ends. But what these aftermaths omened, she could not begin to guess. The entirety of her life experiences, challenges and skills she had accumulated did not prepare her for the scavenging of the dead.

She found a man half buried under his mount, his face mauled to a bloody gore. Whimpering, she shut her eyes, looking away, and only after a deep breath dared look again. His hand still clutched an arming sword. Even in death he held uselessly onto the weapon, in vain defending something already lost.

At length she gave up. Try as she might she could not pry the stubborn grip loose. “I can’t use a sword anyway,” she said. “I’d have a better chance running without such a heavy burden, surely.” Not that she would have made better use of a less physically demanding weapon, like a gun.

The rain beat on, chilling her the longer she was exposed to its influence. And the thing about running, she thought, is that it’s better done early than not. But run where?

“Search the carriage,” the snake suggested.

She grumbled some more. But indeed, beside the stagecoach was a man somewhat in finer garbs from the rest, and at his waist was the protruding hill of a weapon.

“You are quite perceptive,” she remarked. And helpful in this instance, but she misliked letting a demon know her appreciation. Everyone, religious or not, she rationalized, knows not to rely overmuch on these treacherous creatures called demons. A survival instinct, so to speak, that only pride and foolishness could check. And if she was sometimes foolish, she had not the conceit to associate without fear with those beings. And even to say that the demons in this world may be different than in the myths of hers, her first impression of the great serpent had provided her with all the needed conclusions regarding their morals.

“It is through your eyes that I see,” Mastema said, “you are just not paying attention. Nor are you adequately aware of the lurking dangers. No! Don’t just draw it out! Unbuckle his belt!”

So she did, despite her reasonable cause to dislike the act, while trying not to look at the man’s ashen face. She buckled the belt around her waist. It hung slagging to her side. And thankfully it weighed less than that arming sword she had failed to pry out from the cold dead hand. A slim blade with an ornate guard. A sword, she internalized, and absolutely nothing else helpful about its usage.

“Worry not too much of it, Mistress. Do things go well, and on account of our master’s design, it should, you shall never need to defend yourself with steel or prowess in arms. Your true mastery lies in a place else.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Quite generous of your master’s design to throw me out here,” she said, “Is everywhere else in this world even as this? Such uncivilized ground for murder and... and... burning things?”

“Doubt not your master’s plan, mistress. Plots and schemes are her domain, and if she thought it best to send you here- Hark! Here they come!” Cordelia’s heart lurched. “Run!” said the serpent.

“Run where!” she cried.

The answer manifested itself even as she whipped her head madly around. A chorus of terrible howls shook the air, and with it great thumpings on the earth from one side of the road.

She ran.

Away.

“Unfortunate timing,” Mastema remarked, its voice unfazed though her swinging arm blurred its body.

There was not even time for Cordelia to become winded by the chase, or inevitably stumbled on a treacherous root. They fell onto her ere the toppled carriages had vanished from sight. She could not tell how it transpired, nor how it ended. Only with intense pain did she afterward look up from the base of a great tree. Her back felt positively destroyed.

A great shuffling of shapes, a gathering of stench. The earth quaked ceaselessly to their movements. Then they settled down in encirclement, three of them all told. She wished they had been wolves. Had it been so there would have been the slightest chance the undrawn sword at her waist could save her. The thought of a mazed mind. For even raising her arm now proved an agonizing task. But these beasts were something more than mere wild animals, though they resembled wolves in form. As tall as a house, they brushed high boughs as they moved, their black fur suffused in the dim forest’s light like wavering smoke, and their eyes glowed ghastly like bengal fire.

Languid were their movements, no haste, for their prey had already fallen. And however one spun it, her puny, shaky legs could never outrun these strides as long as several horses. Soon they would descend upon her with blade-like teeth and feral feasting.

Her mind went wild. She would not even make for half a hearty meal for these creatures, and yet at these jaws she should meet her demise. How unfair! How utterly ridiculous it is to demand a child to run ere it could walk! What stupid plan is this? How was she to fare against these ridiculous monsters? There was not even the smallest of chances: no blessing nor powers bestowed her to survive her first hour in this hostile world.

“ ‘Tis an impasse,” the snake remarked cooly, with apparent full trust in the unknown plan.

“Ah, I don’t care anymore,” she mumbled. She just wanted to live. She had even made a bargain with the devil for a chance at what had been robbed from her in the previous life. She crawled to her feet. The pain on her back pierced through her entire and near dragged her down again. To have gone so far, to lose so much, to give up now.

She extended her hand, as though to invite the monstrous thing over for petting. They regarded her with something resembling amusement. And in these eyes she saw the spark of intelligence. No dumb beasts, these. They knew she was cornered, and would fain to toy with her till the last moment. One of them, the largest, stepped forth, and bent its head to sniff her hand. A guttural grunt that sounded bizarrely like a laugh reverberated in its throat.

“What might you be doing, Mistress? Your repertoire does not encompass the taming of beasts,” said the snake.

“I’m not going to hell alone. Bite it.”

“What?”

“I said bite it! Poison it! Kill it! Who cares if I’m to be eaten anyway, at least this time I shall take someone with me!”

“Well, but...”

“Do it! I do command!”

The viper darted from her wrist. As its tiny teeth sank into the wolf’s muzzle, the monster started and leaped away with an angry growl. It happened in the span of the second, the next, Mastema was around her left wrist again. The giant wolf remained at a guarded distance away from her. A few seconds passed. Then as the creature lifted its snout skywards, the guttural laugh echoed again, and the others joined it.

“The hell!” she cried out in anger.

“Mortals,” the familiar helpfully explained, “my poison works only on mortals. These are aught but. They are feys.”

Damn it all to hell. Utterly useless to the last moment.

The time for laughter came to an abrupt end. The monstrous wolves fell on her.

The cold rain had for a while now given way to the chilling dread in Cordelia’s bones for imminent death and the sharp tearing pain at her back. Her dull senses could ill perceive it anymore. And yet when from this barren world of coldness a heat arrived and teased her shivering skin, her senses suddenly awakened, feeling the world and all its intricate movements slowed down to a crawl, all the strange and sudden and unexpected sounds. The battle cry, the rustling of steel.

It began with a dull thud and then the spurting of blood. The creatures whirled. The largest among them barked sharp commands or warnings as the rest moved with alacrity. A long, slender shaft protruded from its haunch.

More shafts came flying. All struck home.

As Cordelia’s legs gave out, a lone, mailed figure charged the crouching beast at a sprint. Steel flashed in his arms. The large and unwieldy weapon described one sure pattern in the air, perfectly timed to ward off the first converging attack of the beasts. Then when once again they converged, the warrior ducked, plunging between the gigantic claws of the one in front. Even as dark blood from its belly poured on the warrior’s blade and armor, more arrows flew. And now came the second warrior, whose bow was flung aside, whose steel was at once drawn.

The leader of the wolves reeled, staggered and then fell over, its entrails and black blood soaking the forest floor. The sight was too much for the remaining beasts. They drew back. Two against two. Tiny humans against enormous beasts. Steel against fangs.

The fey wolves turned and fled.

While his companion tracked back to pick up the discarded bow, the first warrior wiped his sword on the slain beast’s smoky fur. Then he turned his attention to Cordelia.

“Are you harmed?” he asked, sheathing the blade. A young man with scant stubble, high brow and tall. In her old world he could have passed for a small-time model. But in this one, the blood that stank all over marred his appearance somewhat. He was clad in mail, covered from neck to toe with plates. On his back was the steel blade that had slain the impossible beast and saved her life.

“Be careful how you answer,” Mastema said.

The man started.

How foolish. She wanted to curse the familiar. It seemed even in this world a talking bracelet was not common. Much less a snake.

“Worry not,” it said, “he could neither hear nor see me. I am visible only to feys and other einhejar like you, Mistress.”

And indeed even as she looked, the bracelet on her left wrist had settled in its innocuous appearance of an inanimate object. And the image of a coiling serpent was nothing more than a resemblance wrought into this piece of jewelry.

Then why?

And she realized, he was not staring at her wrist, but at her face. Her first thought out of habit was of the scars she had inflicted on her own visage. But the transformation had already effaced the ugly marks. And in its place was something else that bore the opposite effect.

“What’s the matter, Derrick?” A voice came from behind him.

The second warrior approached. And this time, it was Cordelia who started.

A girl. Her hair raggedly cut to her shoulder, her face flushed with the effort of fighting. And yet all the flaws of the moment could not mask a bright, unmarred radiance, a childish innocence emerging even from combat. She was all that her brother, the grim-looking warrior, was not.

But what had started Cordelia was the light - the literal light. A concentrated illumination at the center of the girl-warrior’s chest, brilliant and blinding. The warmth flowed from which was familiar, for it was the very heat that had touched her before the first arrow had arrived to save her life.

And the serpent at her wrist laughed, “Well done, Mistress. Your first task is done! Your prey is found!”

And as it spoke, Cordelia’s mind reeled. Strange dark letters gathered in her vision from some shadowy mist of another plane:

PATRON QUEST COMPLETED:

FIND THE MAIDEN OF GOD

NEW PATRON QUEST:

EARN THE TRUST OF THE MAIDEN OF GOD