Chapter 21—The Mother

At ninety-five years old, the lone man of a growing village of headstrong females went to bed, only to find himself opening his eyes to a plain of white, edged with a scenery his eyes had yet the capability to see, but which was slowly growing clearer.

But it was a gorgeous woman that caught his attention, the cocky jut of her hip and mischievous smile impossible to misplace.

“Oh…you,” he said.

Her smile grew wider, showing her teeth like a cat baring its fangs. “Long time no see, dumbass. Took you long enough to die. Even old age had a stupidly hard time killing you.”

“Yeah, I guess you’d be the first to know that, wouldn’t you? Where were you anyways?”

“After burying the ugly annoying-ass part of myself I lost most of my power, and that includes that ability to materialize. But since I’m technically stuck here, having refused to move on when I had the chance, I’ve just sort of hung out and enjoyed my kids while they’re asleep. We can still interact in their dreams. Gods damn adorable monsters, they are.”

“Yes, I know. I raised most of them.”

“Don’t give me that tone, I helped.”

“You’re dead.”

“And now you are too.” She smirked. “And I’m just making sure you don’t hang around like I did. You still got that royal one true love to get, don’t you?”

Even in spirit form, without a body, that made every part of him flinch.

“What?”

And then she was behind him, slapping him on the spiritual rear. He stumbled forward, the fuzzy scenery sharpening like a jolt of lightning.

“Go get’m, boy.”

***

Kyanna let out a shapeless cry and dropped her torch to the floor, where it sputtered in protest.

Pale as death, he gave no sign that he had heard her. She snatched his face and brought it up to her view. To her relief, he still had his flesh, freckles included. Dry blood caked the corners of his mouth. His dark blond hair matted about his face, crisp with sweat. Fearing the worst, she brushed a thumb over his pale lips, nearly fainting with relief when they quivered, and his eyes finally focused on her face.

“K…Kyanna?” his voice was little more than a whisper.

“Yes, I came for you. We’re going to get you out of here.”

Slowly, very slowly, he blinked. Then he took a low, guttural breath.

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“Can’t…can’t leave.” His eyelids fluttered. “Kyanna…let me tell you a story.”

“Seriously?” Kyanna pulled her hands away, letting his chin fall back to his chest. “Can’t it wait? We have got to get out of here.”

“I once was a soldier,” he said, his voice strengthening, though still hoarse enough to make her wince. “Do you know what soldiers do, Kyanna? Well, I was just an ordinary soldier, not some hero. Didn’t even think to run when the draft came. Probably grandpa’s fault. We’re descended from knights. Don’t know how we became barons. We soldiers were sent to this city. Not the capital. Just some city in the desert.”

A thrill of dread filled her as she realized where he was going with this. “No, Einar, you have to stop. You have to get yourself out of this, okay? Badra!” She turned to find her friend standing dazed in the doorway, her gaze distant and her sword arm lax. “Badra! Snap out of it! Don’t you know how to pick locks? Get over here and help me.” Badra shook herself and came forward, reaching into the sash at her waist.

There came a distant moan and a long squeal of hinges, magnified by the stone hallways. Bile rose to the back of Kyanna’s throat.

“The night was fire,” said Einar. “Have you ever seen a city on fire before, Kyanna? It turns everything orange until even the night sky is nothing but black and orange. No stars. No moon. Just smoke and ash and orange, orange, orange.” His head wagged from side to side with each ‘orange,’ wayward locks of crispy hair poking against Badra’s thigh as she worked. “And they were screaming. Women. Screaming. Men don’t scream as high, you know that? Even while being gutted. And I was running, everyone pushing, and I couldn’t breathe right. Pigs kind of scream like people, but there was more than…you need a lot of air to scream. A lot of people didn’t have that. Do you know why Kyanna?”

“Gods, stop talking, Einar, stop it! You’re going to…just stop talking and listen to my voice. Remember the story of the genie and the opal? Remember when you met the Soan—Badra!” Badra had slowed and leaned against one of his cuffs, her shoulders slumping. She moved at her shout, shaking her head.

“Kyanna…I...I don’t know what’s going on with me. Everything’s gotten all heavy.”

“It’s just in your head, Badra, we’re almost out. Just focus on the lock.”

Badra blinked furiously and dug on, leaning her ear against the keyhole to hear the minute clicking.

Something like leather tapped and slid across stone far behind them.

Einar just muttered, “It hurts the girl a lot, you know, when you force it on them.”

“Can you get him to shut up?” Badra said through gritted teeth.

Kyanna slapped his cheek, but she had never been the violent sort, and it might as well have been a tap.

“And I didn’t kill them. I didn’t stop them. I didn’t rape girls too, but I should have killed those bastards that did. I just shuffled on. If I’m supposedly so smart and strong…but I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything, Kyanna. So I can’t go. This is where things like me belong.”

Badra’s forehead thumped against the wall with a groan. “Damn it, there’s two of them…”

“Then get to the other one.”

“Not like there’s a point,” muttered Badra, almost too low for Kyanna to hear.

Kyanna threw her head back in frustration. “Ugh, not you, too. Look I hate myself too, but he doesn’t deserve this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Shut up! Both of you!”

A low groan echoed down the hallway, closer than ever, paired with slaps of leather feet and edged with the new sound of toenails clicking against the floor. She could taste it now, that bile on the back of her throat.

“You’d think they wouldn’t have the time with everything burning, but it burns so slow, a city. Have you ever seen a city on fire, Kyanna?”

Badra had stepped over Einar to reach the keyhole on the other side of the bar bracketing in his wrists but ended up slumping her head to the wall once more. The pin plinked to the floor. No amber showed in the Soan’s eyes, just black, hooded by her ginger lashes.

Chains clinked against the doorways. Something whistled, like hair through a small hole.

Kyanna lunged for the pin, shoved it in Badra’s hand, then jumped up and slapped her upside the face in one move, this time with all her strength. Badra stumbled, kept up by digging her nails around the bracket. Her head whipped around to bare her teeth at Kyanna, only for her gaze to catch something behind her and fall.

“Oh Mother,” she squeaked.

Kyanna pivoted on her heel, her sword still grasped in her hand.

The flat of the blade slapped against the stained linen shorts hung on a bony, mummified hip. A rotten breath of old meat and eggs whistled besides her ear. It’s hand came around her arms and torso in a macabre version of a one-armed hug.

Pain pierced her arm just as a gleaming scimitar sliced between them, severing the dried arm like a carrot.

Kyanna swung her own sword, whopping the creature across the head and only taking a chunk of its swollen cheek along with it. She swung again, more like a bat than a sword, making it stumble to the side into Badra’s waiting scimitar.

It’s severed halves flopped to the floor, a dried brain revealed in its skull like a large chestnut. Black worms poured out onto the stones from behind it.

Both women jerked back with a shriek of disgust.

Einar reacted not at all, as though he didn’t even see it. Rather, he continued to mumble.

“I killed them. All of them. I’m good at it. And the children…” Einar groaned like a man that’d been run through. “It’s good I won’t become a father.”

As Kyanna kicked the body of the corpse away, Badra turned back to picking the locks.

A click and Einar’s hands plopped down on either side of him.

Several other moans echoed down the hallway, clashing in an unturned chorus.

“Kyanna…” Badra squeaked. “The worms.”

Several had found her foot and squiggled up. She flailed, shrieking, sending them smacking into the walls. She retrieved her torch to burn them, just in case, but the fire never touched them. They vanished the moment it got close.

“To think we were worried we’d want to remain here,” said Kyanna.

“But I’ve cut those things heads before and never seen those worms,” said Badra, sheathing her sword. “And I was totally out of it before you slapped me. It’s weird. Help me get this sap up, will you?”

“We can’t fight them and carry him.”

“You call what you did back there fighting?”

“I’m a princess!”

“Then I’ll fight, and you carry him.”

And Kyanna was fully set on just doing so until she started to get Einar’s weight on her shoulders and dropped. Blood from the scratch on her upper left arm had already trickled down to her palms, making her grip slippery.

“By the five, he’s heavy.”

Badra dropped before Einar and slapped him. New blood trickled from his mouth.

“Wake up, asshole!”

“Not so hard!” Kyanna squeaked.

He just hung there, staring at the wall.

A chunk of chain hit the doorframe and another swollen jawed corpse slid in. Its long nails reached towards them.

Badra jumped up to swing once more, but no sooner had the corpse’s head dropped along with its body then another replaced it, this one dressed in a shabby shift and with lank spindles of red hair dripping down its shoulders.

At the sight, Badra stiffened.

It was a second long enough for the corpse to rake its claws at Kyanna once more, this time at her shirt. Thankfully, the thick wool uniform she’d cursed since stepping foot into the desert tore, but it protected her skin.

“Why do they keep swinging at—“ Badra paused. “Kyanna! The locket!”

Kyanna looked down to see the gold glowing faintly, just barely seen against the flickering light of their torches.

She dug her nail into the edge to bring out the wire key, even as she felt more worms nudging past the cuff of her boots.

Just as she pulled it out, a clawed hand snatched her leg. The split skull, still oozing worms and blackened brain matter, shifted, its mouth whistling once more.

Kyanna jammed the wire into the locket.

It popped open with an explosion of light. The fire vanished, the corpses pressing through the doorway recoiled, the worms evaporated, and the tan stone walls bleached white.

A familiar, statuesque woman appeared within the light, her blood-red hair tied back into a ponytail which swept about her by an unseen force like the banner of a flag. Her honey skin shone out like gold, and her almond eyes like sunshine. She wore only white, billowing pants that were tied about her ankles and a simple white wrap about her breasts.

Her full lips smiled down on Kyanna, for once not hiding laughter.

“Oh,” Kyanna breathed.

The Genie nodded, smiled at a gaping Badra, but then crouched down before Einar, who had also looked up in surprise.

“Since when did you get so pathetic?” she asked, her tone affectionate despite her words. Her voice came like the clear call of a trumpet, ringing the blood and vibrating the bones, though gentle on the ears.

Einar just blinked, his chapped, bloody lips quivering.

“You spent an entire lifetime denying this darkness,” she traced his chin with a single, polished nail. “And that was at its prime. It’s pathetic now. And you even have your princess with you, and a much less bratty version at that. What could possibly be stopping you?”

The Genie took hold of his wrists and in a quick flick had him on his feet as though he weighed nothing at all.

“Unless you’re ready to make a wish?”

Einar closed his mouth. He lowered his chin, setting his gaze back out at her in determination.

“I can grant my own wish, thanks.”

At that, the Genie threw back her head and laughed. The sound ricocheted off the walls, soaking through the stone and shaking through to Kyanna’s very organs. Then she brought her beautiful face down, bringing with it a return to her usual mischievous grin.

“Good. Because I’m not helping you this time.”

And after ruffling his hair hard like an older sister to a scruffy younger brother, she faded back into the locket, taking the brilliant light with her.

Kyanna had to blink several times before her eyes adjusted to the torch lit dim.

A large, gloved hand brushed her arm.

Einar smiled at her. Worn, pale, with shadows beneath his eyes that made him look hollow, but it was the same tender thing that made her insides warm.

“I’m sorry, Princess. I’ll behave better from now on.”

His fingers brushed the hand holding her sword and she relinquished it to him. Gods knew he’d put it to better use than her. Even as they made the exchange, moans announced the arrival of yet more corpses. A familiar wild light returned to Einar’s eyes and in a few quick slashes, which Kyanna barely saw, the bodies reaching through the door crumpled to the floor.

“Go, we’ll follow,” he told a still very flummoxed Badra.

“Hell no am I taking orders from—“

“Ugh, fine, whatever.”

And he ran out, tugging on Kyanna to follow before letting go.

Badra followed behind. They ran to the previous hallway, in which Kyanna peeked down only to halt, the back of her neck prickling horribly. Several doors on the cells had opened. Shadows played on the opposite walls as whatever was in them reached through the bars. She felt Einar nudge her towards one of the unknown doors.

“This way. I know a shortcut.”

He half staggered, half ran to the last door in the hall and flung it open to reveal yet another staircase, barely wide enough to allow passage. Badra slammed the door behind them to the chorus of shuffling steps and moans, swearing.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“Seeing as I actually know this place more than you, yeah, I’d say I do.”

The staircase plunged at a steep angle. As Einar stumbled down it on his shaking legs, Kyanna feared he would fall and topple. She reached out a hand to catch the loose edge of his tunic, clutching it high in her other hand. He glanced back at her, but otherwise continued onward.

Down, down they plunged, spiders filling the corners and their webs stretching across the stairway. More than once Kyanna spotted the carcasses of scorpions watched by some great, gleaming arachnid. Yet no matter how far they descended, the sounds of rotten nails against the wooden door pounded after them.

The moment the stairs ended, Einar fell to one knee, panting. Badra and Kyanna followed suit, leaning on their legs but not daring to touch the web infested walls. Sweat dribbled down from beneath Kyanna’s cowl and she tore it off with relish.

“Damn,” wheezed Einar, “Damn, it’s like I have no energy. Hate this place. Just as I remember it. Didn’t have any energy then either.”

“Don’t think about it,” said Kyanna.

There came a faint clicking noise. Kyanna held her breath, and for a moment she could hear an equally quiet tapping.

“Uh…spiders?” said Badra. Her sweaty face had gone even more deathly pale to the point of green. Her eyes were staring into the darkness, wide with terror. She was pointing into the darkness ahead of them.

Einar cursed. Slowly, Kyanna did as well, knowing she’d hate what she saw.

In the darkness, glittering in their torchlight, scuttled a carpet of black spiders the size of a fist, shiny and gleaming. Long legs picked in and out about a tunnel of webs, disturbed by the firelight.

She had been given a chance to get used to the corpses, even if it had just been the numbing effect of the jail’s curse drawing her in. But this…she hadn’t even had the chance to have nightmares about it.

Her head spun. Disconnected. Floated up. Her torch clanked to the floor.

Einar’s arm caught her.

“You were doing so well.”

She had no quipping comeback. Half-conscious brains weren’t good for that.

Badra fixed that by pinching her nose and covering her mouth. Kyanna shook free, gasping for breath. The quick flood of air had the same effect as a bucket of cold water.

“Some shortcut,” the Soan muttered as she gave Kyanna a few light slaps for good measure.

“I’m awake!” Kyanna cried.

A snap of wood echoed down the stairs.

“Looks like we don’t have a choice.” Einar glanced down the tunnel made of the web. Even in their weak torchlight, all could make out the swarms of legs. Kyanna felt her head start to spin once more and she snapped her face down, only to see more spiders scuttling about the edge of their light, the webs where the fire had touched curling like strands of hair.

With a few more deep breaths, she took hold of the edge of Einar’s tunic once more. Badra picked up her torch with the tips of her fingers and handed it over.

“I’m going to be talking about this tunnel to Hasna for months,” though her good humor was ruined by how clammy her fingers were against Kyanna’s. “She’s gonna hate me.”

“I-I-I’d think there’d be better ways to encourage sisterly affection.”

“It encourages entertainment, not affection.”

“Alright,” said Einar. “Single file seems our best bet.”

He slid the skinny blade into his belt and took Kyanna’s torch. Kyanna instantly twisted up her freed hand into his tunic. Then they were moving, and she had her face buried into his back, furiously telling herself she did not feel tickling in her hair or the occasional wet crunch beneath her shoe.

More snapping wood.

Sooner than she expected, Einar stopped. His back fidgeted as he pulled, was a squeak of a hinge. He yanked. Kicked.

Kyanna felt more tickles on her legs.

“Damn, don’t do this to me.”

Another yank which hit her temple with his shoulder blade and a crunch like sandpaper preceded a whoosh of air rushing into the corridor.

Einar lunged forward. Sandstone slid beneath her feet, breaking her grip on his tunic. Her eyes flew open only to see stars flying up out of view as sand rushed up to greet her face first. Gravity took over and she tumbled heels over head down the slope.

When she came to a stop, she swung her head up to spew a mouthful of sand and loose hair. Spit and sweat made it that much more difficult.

“Einar?” Spit, hack, claw at her face. “Badra?”

At least any spiders along for the ride would have been thrown off by sand. She blinked her vision clear, but couldn’t see anything other than stars, and found the sight immensely fair compared to what she’d witnessed the past few hours.

The minute crunch of sand announced a pair of footsteps, and the stars made room for the bleary, silver-lined face of her husband. He gave her a smile before flopping down on the sand beside her.

For a time, they simply breathed. Badra joined them at some point, lying down on Kyanna’s other side. As Kyanna stared up at the sky, she picked out the Snow Maiden. Then she turned away to Einar and drank in his form, haggard and exhausted, but blessedly alive.