Shattered Soul (12 page)

Phemar turned and looked at the kneeling warrior. Her head was tilted down, the dark hair a twisted mass of tangles hiding her expression.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Slowly her head tipped up and she looked through the strands with dull eyes.

“Yessss.” Phemar’s hiss was triumphant. “She is ready. Biddable to our demands.”

“Then do it,” The Overlord ordered.

Turning back to her, Phemar raised both hands in the air and started chanting. Shadows flicked through the air, and one monstrous, barely-there outline of a horned beast stood in front of the warrior. Grabbing the chain that attached to the thick collar around her throat, he jerked her forward.

Fredrico felt a little twinge of regret when she walked without a sign of any of the previous fire. Reeka warriors were proud, but this one was damaged beyond repair. He just knew it and the knowledge was like ash upon his tongue.

The manacles on her wrists and ankles fell open and clattered to the floor with the chains. The shadow tugged the neck chain and she followed it mutely from the cell to the chamber below.

Phemar pointed to the end of the chamber and the beast dropped the chain onto the floor.

“Is that wise?” Veknor queried.

“She is going nowhere,” Phemar replied.

They all watched as the warrior stood still. Phemar gestured and the collar fell open and thumped to the floor.

Her eyes were so dull as she watched Phemar. Fredrico could have almost felt sorry for her but it had been a long time since he’d felt sorry even for himself. Some emotions were just better to be buried deep.

The fire in the middle of the chamber flared up, the tongues of flame licking hungrily at the ceiling before dying down to snap and crackle.

Drawing a dagger with a silver handle from his tattered robes, Phemar held it up and started chanting, the words indistinguishable but ugly, filling the air like a darkly-spreading blaspheme. The warrior didn’t appear focused on him but stared instead into the flames. Bright lights sparkled in her empty eyes, a reflection of the fire.

Leaning back against the table, Fredrico studied her anew. This was to be the answer The Overlord had waited for, for so long. And now she was here and it seemed, having fought her insanity and self-preservation to the limit, she was now a subdued puppet there to do his bidding.

It was almost a shame. But shame was something he’d learned to live with also, so he shook away the vague pity starting to rise away and refocused on the warrior.

And blinked.

Oh shit.

Her eyes weren’t unfocussed anymore. The glint in them wasn’t from the fire and she wasn’t subdued. In fact, she was watching the dark mystic as he stepped forward and reached out one rotting hand towards her.

Before Fredrico could shout a warning, the warrior sprang. With a snarl she grabbed the dark mystic’s wrist and twisted. The snap of bone rang through the chamber and Phemar howled, the dagger clattering to the floor.

The fire roared and dark shadows started to pour from it.

Fredrico and Veknor started forward but the shadows had substance and they were pushed aside as the dark shapes writhed towards the battling pair.

The warrior slammed Phemar to the floor, ignoring the shadowed claw that twined into her hair and sought to jerk her head back. Even as she ground her heel into the dark mystic’s back, she swung her arm around and her fingers sank into the darkness.

She couldn’t grab the shadows. The clawed arm disintegrated in her hand, flowing apart to reform a distance away before striking forward again.

Fredrico and Veknor gaped, and when she swung around to face The Overlord, they lunged in front of him protectively.

The warrior snarled and the glitter in her eyes was a cross between orange fire and green flame. Reaching down, she grabbed the dark mystic’s tattered robe, hauled him up and thrust him towards the men.

The dark mystic stumbled, caught by a shadow.

“Phemar!” The Overlord cursed. ‘Damn it, why is she still fighting? Why?”

Spitting obscenities, Phemar swung around and pointed his finger at the advancing warrior. “Die! Die!”

“No!” The Overlord rammed his throne forward, knocking Veknor from his path. “No! We need her! Phemar, no!”

“She is beyond saving.” Twin points of dark orange shone from the depths of Phemar’s hood.

The warrior ran forward, breaking through the dark shadows that sought to hold her back, causing the smoke tendrils to shred away from her. A beast started to form in the corner, substance coming to life through the darkness, and Fredrico cursed. He’d seen this happen before and the end result was always messy.

But he didn’t have time to think, all he could do was act. Protecting The Overlord was his job and he’d protect him to his last breath, which, going by the insane look in the warrior’s eyes, could happen very soon. She was unstoppable, though right at this point she was focused on Phemar.

The fire flared when Phemar thrust his hand up and just as the warrior jumped the last few feet separating her from the dark mystic, the flames shot forward to create a living wall of flame.

She didn’t stop. Her insanity was so much, her hate for the dark mystic so deeply entrenched, that she flung herself into the fire to get to him on the other side.

The warrior was going to burn. Fredrico’s heart clenched with some unknown emotion.  “No!”

The warrior didn’t appear through the other side of the fire. Instead, she was thrust backwards out of the hungrily licking flames. Instead of burning as he expected, she was surrounded by a white light. The light created its own wall, holding back the fire that sought to sear the flesh of the warrior who fell to one knee, her hands braced on the floor as she stared up uncomprehendingly at the white light and the fire beyond.

“What’s happening?” Veknor demanded, pushing to his feet.

“I don’t know,” Fredrico said, “but Phemar doesn’t look happy.”

The dark mystic, in fact, looked shocked. He stared at the warrior on the floor to the white light surrounding her. A soft, pale pink pulsed through the light and as they watched, the hate-filled features of the warrior, the snarling venom on her face, eased. Insanity still shone in her eyes but it was subdued, and then slowly her eyes drifted shut. Still kneeling, her head tippednbs head t forward and she was still.

The Overlord glanced around. Phemar screamed in frustration, backing away, sizzling bits of putrid flesh raining down around the tattered hem of his robe.

A fresh wash of air slid through the chamber, carrying upon it the scent of rain-laden air and fresh flowers. Fredrico gulped it in almost before he realized it, relishing the freshness.

“Beulah!”
Phemar snarled. “I know you! You have no right here!”

 The Overlord swung his head around, searching for the witch-woman, but the only thing to see was the white light surrounding the fallen warrior.

The shadows fell back from the light, crowding against the wall, some sliding up behind Phemar.

The pale pink pulsed, a calmness in the dark storm of madness that permeated the chamber. Slowly, in the midst of the light, a form took shape. White hair that flowed in a breeze of its own, an ageless face, and eyes as black as night with the stars of the universe in them. A slender figure in a shapeless gown that swept the floor.

“Phemar. Overlord.” The words whispered from the corners, chasing the shadows away from them.

Black figures scuttled away, slipping back into the fire.

A horned, barely-seen beast tossed its horns and flared its nostrils, but it bowed its head and looked up from an almost submissive posture.

“Damn you, Beulah!” Phemar snarled. “You have no business here!”

“Your atrocities are felt in the spirit world.” Her voice whispered from the roof of the chamber. “You have taken someone not belonging to you.”

“The warrior was marked a long time ago.” Taking a calming breath, the dark mystic hunched slightly, turning partly away.

Fredrico was surprised to realize that somehow, for some reason, the mystic was wary of the witch woman.
How interesting
. Standing beside The Overlord’s throne, he watched closely.

“The warrior was not yours to mark,” Beulah stated.

“You cannot take her back.” Phemar glared at her.

“No, I cannot.” Lifting her hand, she laid it upon the bowed head of the kneeling warrior. “But I can give her back her mind and her soul in one piece.”

“She is ruined.” Phemar waved one hand, a piece of smouldering flesh spattering on the floor.

“No soul is ruined, no soul cannot be brought back together.” The words drifted through on the fresh breeze that swept the rancid smell from the chamber. “Some souls need a little more, and that will come and help make them complete once more. For now, though, it’s the warrior I see to.”

“You think you can reclaim her?” He sneered.

Fredrico saw the flare of a falling star in Beulah’s left eye. How much power did this witch woman have? He didn’t remember her being so powerful the last time he saw her, when she’d come to the fortress with Sinya the space pirate. And he didn’t remember her quite like this, then again, different forces worked in strange ways, as he was well aware.

Beulah gazed calmly at Phemar.

“Witch woman,” The Overlord said quietly.

She turned that calm face to him and Fredrico almost shuddered at the otherworldliness of her features. It was her, but not. It wafont not. s as though a different side of her was imposed over her own self.

Two sides of a whole.

Weird. But in a nice way. Made a change from weird in a terrifying way.

“I need her,” The Overlord continued. “I need her body and soul.”

“You never own someone, Overlord.” The words seeped up from the floor. “But I know why you need her.”

“Then help me.”

She looked at him, the flare of stars in her eyes almost brilliant.

The Overlord’s pupils elongated. “Or I should say, help her to help me. And help me to keep the darkness in my control.”

“You think you know much, Overlord, but you don’t know half of it,” Beulah said. “But one day you will. For now, I bring the warrior back whole. But note this, Phemar,” she turned her gaze to the dark mystic, “she will never be complete darkness.”

“Her ties are to me!”

“Your ties dragged her back, but it’s my ties that make her whole.”

“What?” His head jerked, and for one awful second Fredrico thought he was actually going to get a look at a face he’d never wanted to see in his life.

“Do it,” The Overlord stated.

“No,” Phemar grated.

The fire snapped, sparks splintering upwards at his rage. He tried to step forward but couldn’t get close to the light. It cast a sickly light across his decaying hands and he shuffled back into the darkness as the white light flared even brighter.

Fredrico couldn’t see what happened. The light shone brighter and brighter, driving the darkness back until the whole chamber was lit so brightly he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Covering his eyes with his arm, he turned away.

It suddenly felt as though things were in the chamber with them. Something slid around his neck, something chattered angrily in his ear. Bodies, so many bodies. An impression of hugeness, golden light, deep voices rising in a harmony of song. The sound of water trickling, space and air, sun and wind.

Peace.

He hadn’t known peace for so long.

His heart yearned suddenly, reaching out, and without thinking he turned back towards the light and opened his eyes just a fraction. He was almost shocked to see that his arms were stretched out, his hands reaching.

Something warm slid up his arm, seeped into him, and the flowery scent was inside him, seeking and searching, a little bright light that vanished as suddenly as the beautiful light did before his eyes.

Blinking, feeling a sense of loss, he looked around.

The light was gone. Beulah was gone. The stench of Phemar’s putrid flesh was back, and the shadows slunk out from the fire, crawling along the ground to hunker down in the corners.

He could almost fancy that his soul gave a little cry of despair.

Idiot. My path was set a long time ago. Focus on what is at hand or you’ll be dead in no time.

He became aware of The Overlord and Veknor beside him, their eyes on the kneeling warrior.

Phemar strode around the fire to stand directly in front of the warrior, glaring down at her. “Come, bitch warrior, show me if the witch womahine witchn could do what I could not.”

She tipped her head back slowly and for the first time Fredrico saw sanity in the green depths of her eyes. Looking up at Phemar, the warrior pushed to her feet in a movement slow but fluid. Graceful.

“My name,” she said in a husky voice, “is Rani. And I know what you did.” She thrust the dark mystic’s dagger straight into his stomach.

He let loose a cry of pain and surprise.

Veknor and Fredrico stiffened, immediately going on the defensive, but The Overlord held up one hand, stopping them from going to the dark mystic’s aid.

For once Fredrico was in hearty agreement. It would make his day if the bastard died.

Rani stepped forward, no fear on her beautiful face but fury in her eyes. The softness of her words belied the rage Fredrico could see in every line of her lithe, strong body.  Standing so close to the dark mystic, she looked down into the depths of his hood without flinching.

“You can’t kill me,” Phemar hissed wetly, blood slipping from both his stomach and his hood.

“No, but I can hurt you.” She wrenched the dagger handle and the blade bit upwards. “I can hurt you bad.”

Stepping back swiftly, she placed one foot against his stomach just below the dagger and shoved hard.

He dislodged from the blade with a wet, sucking sound. Staggering back, hands clasped to his bleeding stomach, he hunched over and whispered indistinguishable words.

Ignoring him, The Overlord continued to watch Rani with interest.

Fredrico watched her warily.

Turning towards them, Rani regarded them all steadily. Fury still burned in her eyes but it was controlled. Walking forward her steps were sure, her booted feet treading precisely on the stone floor.