Reflections
There was a stark incongruence between the classic Dwemer-style hallway above and this area beneath it. Really the splintering rafters and the bare red brick walls reminded Erik more of a typical Skyrim basement than an ancient ruin of prodigious elven engineers of yore.
But he was, in truth, a little too preoccupied to appreciate the change in architectural ambience other than in passing. For now he was certain of the nature of the strange noises. It was definitely footsteps. Little ones.
He brushed aside the silly notion which had first popped into his head. The Dwemer were long gone, and despite being named dwarves, it was common knowledge that they had not in fact been small. Some animal had been the second suggestion, but he'd had to scrap that one too. There was no question of the bipedal nature of whatever was making those sounds.
A ghost, then. Despite wanting to, he had not been able to disperse that notion. He was fairly certain that ghosts existed, even if he'd never see one himself. But he'd heard enough accounts from reputable sources.
Probably the reasonable thing to do then would have been to run away. But Erik wasn't really afraid of ghosts. He had, after all, hacked down all manners of preternatural abominations in his time, and he had a pretty solid notion in his mind that ghosts were typically not harmful. Or so he thought.
Perhaps this thing, ghost or whatever, could help him relocate his friends. He thought it was worth a shot.
Ariadne turned left, then stopped for a moment to consider if this was the third or fourth time she had done so. Perhaps she should have taken right this time, if only to add variance. Perhaps that would increase the chance of—
She hissed in irritation. It made no difference anyway! What madness had prompted her to enter this damned labyrinth to begin with?
She chose to ignore the obvious answer that came to her, just as she'd chosen to ignore the fact that she would not be able to find her way back even if she tried. And so she just carried on.
Some passages were narrower than others, and then again some were as wide as normal hallways. Lit by buzzing green lights stuck to the high ceiling. Mostly the passages were straightforward, but on occasion they zigzagged awhile before leading to another straight stretch. Just to throw you off.
What was the point of building something like this! Had this been their idea of a good time? Was that what had been the purpose of this place, an amusement house for a chronically bored race of technical geniuses?
Why, oh why did I ever agree to this madness! I knew it was a bad idea. This is what happens when I trust others over myself. They will get me in trouble. They will get me . . . She chose to dispel the notion before it became too solid in her mind. Killed. No, no. There was no way this would be the end of her! She had yet too much to accomplish. Had the whole world yet to see. The world was yet to meet her. She still had greatness to look for!
She stopped, as she could almost swear she heard someone laughing. Feeling just a little chill, she looked around. Listened.
Nothing.
You're cracking, woman. Now, keep walking.
She rounded the next corner, and this time there was only left to turn.
She stopped again, frowning. No way.
She suspected, was fairly sure, that she'd been this way before. "Oh, for crying out loud . . ."
The oddest smell suddenly filled the hallway. A feeling she could not for the life of her judge for pleasant or deeply unsettling took over Runa at that strangely but undeniably familiar scent. It was the smell of a place: that unexplainable little characteristic tone that a place had, even if you barely ever registered it. But when you returned after being away, it waited for you. She had not smelled this particular one in what felt like a small eternity, and yet now that it was here it did not matter one whit if it'd been a few hours or a few eons between now and the last time. She knew it. It comforted her.
And it terrified her like nothing else had done her entire adult life.
Her legs felt bizarrely weak as she followed the smell past a doorway. As she kept taking deep whiffs of it, trying hard to place it, to remember whatever it was that she had forgotten. Part of her rebelled against it. But another part of her . . .
She felt lightheaded. Perhaps from all the deep breaths. Half-dazed, as though half in a dream she let her heavy legs carry her closer to the origins of the scent. It was getting stronger.
Her sense of place was quickly vanishing, she realized. Almost as if she'd taken a liberal dose of skooma. Like when the drug kicked in, she knew her consciousness had been suddenly drastically altered but paid it little mind. She had no choice.
She flowed with it.
Just like that, another seemingly indeterminate hallway had pulled Ariela in. Now she could see the Ayleid influence that had been missing. Stone cut in more austere yet elegant lines, with little to no detail or adornments, the ceiling vaulted to point. Lit by glowing Welkynd stones inlaid in the walls, their aquamarine light lending the masonry a spectral glow. Contrasting with the mechanical and precise feel of the Dwemer, the Ayleid had a way of making their spaces feel magical and mystic.
Those words pretty much described precisely how she was feeling. Mad as it may have sounded, she knew now that somehow this place had a mind of its own. And it was leading her. She could feel the pull, and it wasn't simply her own manifest curiosity.
She probably should've been terrified. But it felt as though she was walking in one of those dreams where you knew it was a dream. Even if the rational side of her knew that she was fully awake.
She could feel her subconscious mind turning over. Almost as if an external force had reached inside of her and was shifting though her thoughts and memories.
First and foremost, she could feel her doubts and fears float to the surface. She could see herself there, a small and insignificant speck in an ocean of uncertainties, of vast and indifferent or even openly hostile and inimical forces set out to drown her. In fact, they need not even bother, her own intrinsic insignificance was enough to pull her into the currents which she could not hope to resist, let alone control.
The world belongs to the strong, her mind seemed to whisper. To the ruthless. To the cruel. It did not matter what she tried, how much knowledge and wisdom she tried to accrue. None of it mattered one bit in the face of the powerful, who could at any moment wipe her out of their way should they even bother to see her as worth it. Which they wouldn't. After all, hadn't even her own guild turned against her? Cast her out and sold her soul. Sold their own souls, to give away to a Daedric prince. And for what?
None of this was anything new. How many nights had she spent awake in her life, fretting about the dark waters that she had always felt churning just outside her own humble existence? Had she not dedicated her scholarly career to studying the Daedric mysteries not in spite of the terror innate to them but because of it? Because she was terrified, she needed to understand. And you didn't need to look beyond this mundane existence for terror, either. The mortal world had more than its share.
And yet, for the first time perhaps ever, in this place, in this eerie glow and a place that almost seemed to know her, she could see those terrors but could not feel them the way she always had before. Even her incessant self-doubts, which over these past years had taken the shape of a nearly audible scorning voice in her head, seemed to have grown weaker.
She did not know what it was about. But she knew that, while it lasted, she was going to enjoy it.
Erik cried out loudly at the sight waiting for him behind the corner. He shied back a few steps, and for all his purported fearlessness of ghosts, an eerie cold wave ran up his legs.
A boy, perhaps nine or ten years of age, glared at him from underneath a furrowed brow. "Why are you following me!" he demanded.
Erik's mouth fell open. "I, uh . . ." He scowled. "What are you doing here?"
"Me? I live here! What are you doing here?"
"You . . . live here?" Erik had had moments of confusion in his life, but this felt as if he'd stepped out into some alternative reality.
Then he remembered his ghost theory. While the boy looked like flesh and blood, that didn't necessarily mean he was that. And ghosts, to his recollection, often did not even realize that they were indeed dead.
The initial fear then passed, and Erik felt something akin to pity.
"Yeah, I live here," the boy said, irritated. "And da says I ain't supposed to let strangers follow me around."
"Well," Erik said, groping for the right thing to say. "Your father is very wise."
The boy snorted. "Da is a damned fool."
"Now that's no way to—"
"Everyone says so," the boy said. "Even he does."
Erik stared. He suddenly thought there was something very familiar about the boy. Is it . . . me?
No. It wasn't.
"But don't say I told you so. He'll be—" The boy froze. "Oh shit! He's home! Quick, get out of here or he'll let you have it!" And he dashed away.
"Hey wait up!" Erik ran after the boy.
Ariadne frowned. Was it just her or had the labyrinth started dimming?
No, it definitely wasn't just her. Even as she stared at the greenly glowing light above her, it grew fainter and fainter. "Oh, no you don't," she said, although her voice was less spiked with defiance and more with suddenly budding terror. She did not want to be stuck in here in complete darkness!
The lights did not care for her appeal, and the shadows grew deeper all around her.
"No!" she shrieked, not caring about her composure suddenly crumbling. "Please!"
The dimming seemed to stop. Her whole body clenched, Ariadne stared at that now only faintly glowing object, not even daring to moves lest she someone made it start again. The thing buzzed quietly, the sound of her own heartbeat and breathing louder in her ears.
When after some three dozen heartbeats—or maybe a hundred in her current state—had passed and the light stayed as it was, she dared to move. "Alright," she said, her voice relative steady. "Thank you."
With another furtive glance above, she carried on her wandering. Suddenly feeling as though treading on glass.
Then Runa was no longer in a ruin. A ruin? What had she been doing in a ruin?
The scent was all around her now. So familiar, so safe. How could she ever have forgotten! Wood creaked underneath her foot. She smiled. She knew that sound too. Don't drag your feet or you'll get splinters!
She gazed down. The familiar worn floor. Her bare feet on it, her bare legs peeking from underneath the flower-embroidered hem of her new dress. She looked at the object in her hand. Not a sword. A doll.
She smiled at the rag doll. Buttons for eyes and yellow yarn for hair. Chest patched by Mama. Her friend, Molla.
She knew this place. She knew the smell.
It was home.
Ariela stopped in her tracks. Certain she had heard sounds behind her.
A chill dancing across her spine, she listened. There was definitely a quiet noise, a sort of crawling or slithering, or like the skittering of hundreds of insects. This was underscored by a very low rumble, almost felt rather then heard, like some very large animal. All this could have been easily missed, but she felt as if her senses had been much heightened in the silence.
Calming her breath, she turned to look.
There was a stretch of the hallway some twenty paces behind her where the lights had been reduced to dulling embers, like the power in them had suddenly been sucked out. The shadow falling on the area looked to be moving, as though coalescing into a substance. Ariela watched in fascination as the shadows then became a diffuse black mist, somehow oily in aspect, slowly filling the space. Somehow her senses could not quite make a sense of what she was seeing, but unclear shapes seemed to be forming and diffusing in the midst of the eldritch fog. Like wriggling black appendages.
Then a single eye suddenly appeared at its midst.
This, now, was where the Ariela she knew would have turned tail and ran screaming. But the Ariela she found herself inhabiting now stood her ground and faced the unnatural stare of the hideous single eye. It's only the contents of my own mind.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said.
At that the eye vanished and the fog started to disperse. Soon everything was as it had been. Only the depleted lights remained dun.
Ariela took a deep breath and turned around. She carried on and spared the apparition no second thought.
Ariadne never stopped nor slowed her walking—lest she make herself believe the vague suggestion which had, unbeckoned, insinuated itself upon her mind. That she was not alone in this labyrinth. That something, something big and frightening, was here with her. Some monster. Perhaps hunting for her.
Or was she, perchance, hunting for it?
Stop it! There are no monsters! Or there were, but they mostly wore the skins of mortals. Often lovely skins, like the skin of that bastard Calisto.
Would that I had only seen all of that skin before it was too late!
She scowled. How could she still be entertaining such thoughts, even after everything? They made her, if possible, hate the man all the more!
She thought she heard sounds behind her. She dispelled the notion.
Why are you running away from me?
No, no. No! She would not give in to the temptation to start falling apart. Sure, this would have been the perfect opportunity. Stuck in a labyrinth! Who would have predicted when she'd woken up in her bed at the College that she would find herself in this situation! The scholar was to blame, she and only her!
Join me and we will make her pay! Her and everyone else. You want Calisto? I can give him to you. We can make his death last as long as you wish. You want his skin? Let's take it!
"You're not even there!" she cried at the ceiling. Realizing that that was precisely the sort of thing people did when they started falling apart.
No, the voice that was not even a voice said. Just her own mind playing tricks! I'm not there. I'm—
With a snarl, Ariadne pressed her hands over her ears, as if that would have made any difference. She turned the next corner.
And stopped. Her hands falling to her sides.
It would appear as though she had arrived at the center of the labyrinth. And what was waiting for her there turned out to be . . .
Herself.
Ariadne let out a laugh. "There you are," she said.
She flicked a strand of her dark-brown hair out of her eyes. Then walked in front of the giant mirror which filled the space from the floor to the ceiling and wall to wall. It had been days since she'd last seen herself clearly. She looked . . .
"Beautiful." Yes, it was true. All things considered, with the rumpled robes she'd worn for several days and nights, including crawling on the ground and drudging—partially falling—through a grimy ruin. Her face could use a wash and her hair a brush at the least. Other that that . . . spectacular!
"What was I ever worrying about," she said. "How could anyone ever defeat me? I mean, look at me!" She met the fierce determined gaze of her own gorgeous dark eyes and nodded, and her reflection nodded back. "They don't have a chance against us!"
She admired herself there, fists on her hips and a smile on her full lips. How radiant she looked when she smiled! No wonder she turned men into goo when she did. After all, they were all over her even when she was glowering! With only a few exceptions to name.
She thought of Erik. And without looking away from her reflection, she stopped smiling.
Her reflection did not.
Had he somehow been sucked into the ghost's phantasmal world, Erik wondered. Had he . . . What?
He didn't even possess the right questions. Yet there was no doubt that something strange was taking place. But, overcome by curiosity as he was, he let it play out without attempting to argue. Perhaps he had already entered Sheogorath's realm . . .
What he saw, or what his mind was telling him that he saw, was a typical Nord-style house interior. A small dwelling the likes of which he had seen all his life. At some point, apparently, he had entered, possibly after the ghost or the little boy or whatever he was.
Paying him no mind, the boy scurried to pick a broom and started to sweep the floor in a rushed manner, as if to look like that's what he'd been doing all along.
"Son!"
Erik jumped at the sudden bark of a male voice behind him. He turned to see a man having entered the house. The man had his eyes fixed—and a livid glare it was—on the boy and seemed to not even notice Erik. There was something familiar about him too, but Erik's mind was too much of a blur to place the man.
"Da! I was—"
"You was," the man growled, "dillydallying again, weren't you? And don't even try to argue! The place wouldn't still be a goddamn sty if you hadn't been!"
"I—" The boy looked down at his feet, face reddening. "Yes, Da. I'm sorry."
"Sorry don't cut it!" The man slammed the door closed behind him, making both Erik and the boy start. "How many times I gotta tell ya!"
The boy said nothing, just kept staring at his feet.
The man regarded him. Exhaled deep, seeming to collect himself. "Come 'ere."
"Da—"
"Come," the man repeated, "here."
Sniffing, the boy walked over to the waiting man. Erik watched with mounting dread and helplessness. He wanted to step up and say something. Explain: it had been his fault somehow that the boy had neglected his duties. But then he remembered that the man could not even see him. In all likeliness none of this was even happening. Yet he felt a nervous constriction in his chest, fretting for the boy.
Relief, then, as the man merely laid a gentle hand on the boy's cheek.
"Son, why did you try to lie to me?" Then his face twisted in rage. "AGAIN!"
Erik cried out with the boy as the man suddenly landed a blow and the boy fell to the floor, weeping.
"You're nothing but a damned liar!" the man tried to kick at his son but the boy managed to avoid his booted foot. "And a parasite and a thief!" Another missed kick, haphazardly aimed, as the boy scrambled away.
Erik watched in mute horror, frozen. He wanted to do something, but for some reason he felt as though he couldn't. This wrenched at his soul, as it reminded him so vividly of the worst moments he'd had with his father. Back when he'd been smaller, perhaps until he turned eleven or twelve, when Father had still been drinking, traumatized by the Great War. The drink had brought out the demon in the otherwise mild-mannered man. Aggressive, petty, unfair, and at times violent. He had grown up hating such men, had killed more than a few in his lifetime. And now . . . he found that he could do nothing.
The boy kept pleading, still on the floor as though feeling that getting up would only anger his father more.
Finally the man stopped fuming. And when he spoke again, the subdued tone of his voice was far more terrifying than his rage had been. "You know what to do," he said. He jabbed a thick finger at the door. "Get out there and fetch me the heaviest switch you can find and snap off. And don't try to fool me, I'll know!"
The boy scrambled up and, sobbing, ran to follow the order. As he passed his father, the man gave one more cuff on the back of his head. "And hurry up about it!"
As the boy closed the door behind him, the man shook his head. "I'll set him straight yet," he muttered.
Now Erik's fear had given way to another feeling. He stared at the man with rage bubbling inside. Apparition or no, that was no way to treat someone small and helpless! His hands balled into fists, Erik resisted the urge to rush him. To show what it felt like to be—
The man's eyes then turned straight at Erik, that murky yet ireful gaze flashing and he sniffed, contemptuous. "And you!"
Erik's face fell. Rage suddenly vanishing in the way of shock.
The man grinned. "I know what's on your mind. You think you're better than me, don't you?"
Erik took a step back at the man advancing, but he ran into a wall he could have sworn had not been there just a second ago. He lifted his hands in front of himself, palms up. He tried to say something but no words came out. What was happening to him—he never froze in front of an enemy!
"Well lemme tell ya one thing here: you ain't," the man grated. He reached out to cup Erik's face with both hands, sticking his face right to him. Erik could smell booze on his breath. "You ain't better than me!" He coughed a laugh. "How do you think that I know that?"
Then the horror Erik had been feeling grew to its apex. That face, how had he not recognized it! Worn out and older but still familiar. Too familiar. Erik would know that face anywhere.
It was his own.
Ariadne shrieked and jumped back with her hands over her mouth. Her reflection, on the other hand, stood right where it had been. Fists balled about the hips and a smug grin on those sensual lips Ariadne so admired. But the eyes, they were no longer simply self-assured. They glowed with something more, something hideous. They were, Ariadne realized, little different from Calisto's. That malignant, lustful glare of ill intentions and domination.
"Who are you!" she hissed, trying to substitute terror for defiance.
"Who are you?" her reflection mocked. Then gave a contemptuous titter. "Why, from the way you were looking at me, I'm inclined to say I'm the love of your life, Ariadne."
She felt a pang of shame. Perhaps she had been a bit . . . overly excited about the reunion with her image. it was all the stress, she explained herself.
Wait. She scowled. I don't need to explain myself. To myself!
She laughed. The her in the mirror, that was. "Good old predictable Ariadne. You're so easy to play, did you know that?"
"This isn't real," Ariadne said, trying to calm herself. "You're not there."
"And so what if I'm not?" her reflection said, pacing back and forth in the mirror, as though looking for a way out. "What if you're dreaming? What if I am just a figment of your imagination? Does that change the fact you're so self-obsessed that even your fantasies are about yourself? In fact, wouldn't you prefer if I was real? At least then you might be excused. Barely."
"What do you want?" Ariadne demanded.
"What I want," her reflection said, pressing itself against the mirror. "Is to show you."
Ariadne sneered. "Show me what?"
The reflection, well, mirrored the sneer. "What you could be."
Erik abhorred the stink of alcohol in his face. He drank some, sure, but never to the point of blatant inebriation. Such was the legacy of his father. Drink had made him a different man, a man little Erik had hated with a passion. Even after he had finally put the bottle down for good, there had lingered that fear in Erik's little mind that the monster would one day return. Worse, that he might one day be that monster.
And here it was, staring him starkly in the face.
The monster, himself in some alternative dimension—a future, judging by the graying hair—grinned at him with yellowed teeth. "That's right." He barked a joyless laugh. "Not so high and mighty now, are ya? This is what becomes of no-good dillydalliers like yourself. This is the truth about you."
"No!" Erik grated from between his teeth. "It is not. You are not me!"
The apparition giggled. "I'm more you than you know, sonny." And then it was almost as if that face, in a sudden flash, morphed into that of his father's. Those eyes glazed over by the drink, which he'd never forgotten, which he'd grown to hate so.
Erik found his fury anew. "No!" He pushed the man that was both his father and him—and yet was neither, not if he had a say in it—and the surprised creature fell back.
The hateful apparition managed to keep upright and then, once recovering from the unexpected shove, assumed a defiant stand, grinning contemptuously. "And what are you gonna do about that, sonny?"
Erik looked down at his hands. He was holding a blade.
The false him snorted. "What's that, a toy sword? How you're gonna hurt me with that, sonny?"
Erik gritted his teeth. "Don't," he growled, then leaping forward, "call me that!"
A toy sword it was not. He brought the longsword above his head and hacked down. The apparition's grin barely had time to fade. It tried to raise hands out for protection, uselessly. Erik's blade sliced though a forefinger, sending it swirling, and then contacted with the face twisted by rage and shock and continued right through it. The face that was both his and his father's was split down left from the middle, spraying blood and brain as the half of the skull now severed from the neck fell off. On its way the blade took off the man's left arm from the shoulder, and then bit into the wooden floor. It had been like slicing through soft butter.
At the impact with the hard floor, Erik let go of the hilt and fell back, terror wiping out all of his rage. He slammed into the wall again, raising hands over his mouth, watching the apparition's broken body sluggishly collapse to the floor.
"What have I done?" he breathed. The blade still wobbled, stuck to the flaking hardwood. Erik's hands started shaking. Then his knees gave out and he slumped down. "What have I done?" He buried his face in his hands and gave a heaving sob.
Runa scaled the big, steep stairs, careful not to go too fast and hurt her shin as she often did when she was in a hurry and forgot to be careful. Papa always warned her for being too hasty. Hasty folk go overboard, he always said. Something to do with his ships, she figured. Papa was an important man on ships. He got to tell people what to do. He got to do that at home too, but he was usually kind with his family. Runa suspected he was less kind to the people on his ships. But, she was sure, he was always fair. That was in their name too, Fair-Shield, so how could he not be? Theirs was a family that was all about fair, and everybody knew that. And the shield part, well . . . a shield was something to hide behind when trouble was afoot. Fair-Shield. You couldn't get a better name than that!
She was in a hurry, though. Worry clutched at her chest. She had called but no one had replied. She was eight years old and she had never been left home alone before! Something wasn't right!
Right before she reached the top her foot slipped and she did hit her shin on the edge of the topmost stair. She cursed, like Papa sometimes cursed when he was mad, but then put a hand over her mouth. Mama hated it when people cursed. And for some reason deemed a slap to the head to be less offence. Grown-ups could be so confusing at times.
Pain passed as her worry shoved it aside again. Runa rose over that last ledge and peered into the darkened upstairs. The furniture, the nightstands, the shelves, and that big old scary closet, looming tall in the shadows around her.
How had she forgotten how everything in the world looked? Bigger than she remembered, but that was only because she was still pretty small, short for her age, even. Soon she would grow, her papa always said. Somehow he managed to sound like it was a bad thing. At least there seemed to be something about it that he disliked. Runa for one could not wait. It would be great to grow up!
But she put aside such things for now. Alone in the dark quiet house, she couldn't had felt farther from grown. Where was everyone?
"Mama?" she called. "Papa?" No answer. She thought about calling for Faer, his little brother, but that would have been useless. He was only three!
As her eyes then grew used to the gloom, a sliver of pale moonlight bleeding through the crack in the drawn curtains affording what little illumination it could, Runa made out shapes at the back of the room. She swallowed. "Mama?" Her voice came out all small. "Papa?" Barely a whisper.
Still no answer.
Even as the terror slowly gripped her little heart she vowed to be brave and took the first step. The creak of the floorboard under her foot like the toll of a foretold doom. Calm yourself, Runa, she told herself, like the soothing voice of her mother when she woke up from a bad dream. She wished she could do that now. Wake up. Would that she was only dreaming!
Another step and another as she slowly neared the shapes. One on her parents' bed, another on the floor beside.
A few more steps and it became evident that only denial had kept her from identifying the exact nature of the shapes. Now that she could deny it no longer, she felt something shattering. She no longer suspected, she no longer feared. She knew. And yet, carried by some preternatural surge of strength, she was able to detain the horror and heartbreak for long enough to get a proper view of the tragedy.
A part of her reeled. A decisive part of her. But something else had the command of her and she walked over to the lump on the floor. Her body numb with cold, she gazed down at the bloodied corpses of her mother and her little brother, the former protecting the latter with her body, proven too frail a shield against the blade which had pierced them both. Blood pooled underneath them, pouring down the cracks between the boards.
Runa lifted her gaze to the bed. There lay her father, on his back like he always did when he was taking a rest. He did look restful. Mouth slightly open, like when he was napping. There was no visible horror, anger, or struggle visible on his wizened, bearded features. Only . . . calm. Like a man who knew he had always done his best. The blood all over him seeming to declare that it hadn't been enough.
With cold, stiff legs she walked over. Reached out a shaking hand to prod at her father. He was as though carved of wood. "Papa?" she said. "Papa, wake up. Papa . . . Ma and—" She wiped at the lone tear coursing down her cheek and gave a quivery sniff. "You're not waking up are you?" she whispered. "I'm . . . trying to be brave." Barely able to get a sound out anymore.
She covered her eyes with one hand for but a few seconds. Allowed herself one shaky sob. Then she wiped her eyes dry, took the blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it over her father. After that she went to retrieve a sheet from a nearby drawer of linens where mama always told her not to go and grabbed the nicest sheet she could see there to cover up her mother and brother.
She stepped back to look at them one last time. I was brave, Papa. "Goodbye," she whispered. "Sleep good."
And she turned around and walked over by the big closet which was no longer scaring her in the least. Over there she did not have to see her dead family. There she fell to her knees and, pressing hands over her ears, screamed her throat out.
Ariela thought she could hear a blood-curdling scream. She stopped to listen, but heard nothing further. She closed her eyes and took a settling breath. First time in several minutes, she had felt a pang of disquiet in her chest. It wasn't that she worried for herself. But her companions were still out there. What if her relative ease corresponded with terrors that had befallen them. What if this place was somehow lulling her into a false sense of security while it slaughtered them. What if this peace turned out to be the cruelest trick played on her.
Ariela shook her head, smiling. There she was, her old self. Nothing to worry about, then.
She kept walking.
Even as Ariadne stared at her self-animated reflection in the mirror, the apparition changed. Her own tawny robes melted into ones of grayish black adorned with interlocking wavy patterns. The master robes of destruction. The apparition put one hand on a cocked hip and raised a brow at Ariadne. It had to be admitted, she looked spectacular in it!
Ariadne realized that she had begun smiling and promptly wiped the simper off her face.
Her image, conversely, grinned. "What's wrong? You've earned them, haven't you?"
Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration! Ariadne was gifted and capable, there was no denying that, but she had just reached the level of adept, and while her talent no doubt would earn the expert level soon enough and then ultimately master, she did not delude herself into thinking she had no more learning ahead of her.
Before she could voice this, the image, grinning as smugly as ever, said, "I do not mean the College's petty academic nitpicking." She waved a disdainful hand. "I'm saying that had they not been holding you back all this time you could have reached the heights that you were always meant to soar!"
Ariadne had to admit she had no good argument against that. After all, hadn't she always been frustrated at the slow pace the College insisted that each student had to develop at? Sure, it might have served most students, but what of the exceptionally gifted students such as herself? Should they not have been able to advance faster? No one had ever been able to answer her inquiries about that in a satisfactory way, they had only implied that her impatience was the true cause of hampering her development. The audacity!
The reflection's smile quirked as she doubtless read Ariadne's emotions like an open book. "I can see that you know the truth of my words."
"I'm . . ." Ariadne tried, then closed her mouth. She had nothing.
"Come here," the reflection said. At Ariadne's hesitation, she snorted. "How could I hurt you? I am only a reflection?"
Ariadne was unable to argue against what seemed like solid reasoning. She walked over icily, stopped in front of the reflection and glared. "What do you want with me?"
The reflection looked Ariadne up and down, giving her head a sorry shake. "Poor Ariadne. For all your skill, for all your intelligence, for all your beauty . . . do you honestly think you can trust them? That they won't turn their backs on you? That they won't desert you? They will, for they envy you. They fear you! And they are quite right in doing so. But they will seek to use you, only to discard you when they no longer can. Do not rely on them! Free yourself of their hindering influence. Become the you you deserve to be!"
Ariadne sniffed. "And you're asking me to trust you?"
"Why wouldn't you?" The reflection gave an elegant little shrug, then a smile so dazzling it made Ariadne's stomach flutter. "I'm you."
Ariadne reeled, as suddenly she realized that all the things that the apparition was saying were . . . well, if not true, exactly, then at least a pretty accurate representation of the movements of her own mind. Which makes sense, I guess. But they weren't true, were they? They only reflected the petty, insecure part of her. In no way did they correspond in the better Ariadne she had tried her best to be . . .
And how has that been working out?
She scowled, and this made her reflection's smile all the more arrogant. "Again. You see the truth, don't you? It may be ugly, but you cannot deny it. You are far too smart for that."
Once again, Ariadne was robbed of a reply. She had never been too good at arguing against herself.
"Have faith in me, Ariadne," the reflection said, "I could give you everything you've ever desired . . . and more!"
"How could you do that?" Ariadne said. "You're only . . ."
"A reflection. Yes." The apparition beckoned. "Please, come closer." It pressed itself against her side of the mirror, hands flat against the surface. "Touch me."
Ariadne scowled.
"Do not be afraid."
I'm not— Who was she kidding? She had been terrified this whole time. But she decided that she wasn't going to let a reflection in the mirror—or more likely a symptom of a sudden mental breakdown—frighten her. She was bigger than that!
So, with an exhale and a just a hint of an eye-roll, she did as told and pressed her hands against the mirror where the reflection had its hands. Only the feeling of the cold glass. "What now?" she asked.
"Now," the reflection pronounced, "the veil is removed."
Ariadne flinched back as the mirror suddenly shattered with a crash. Then her eyes widened.
The reflection still stood there.
"I'm dreaming," she said. "That's it. That's the only explanation."
The grinning apparition stepped past the border where the glass had been. The hallway behind her was still just as it had been, a reflection of what was at Ariadne's back.
"You've been dreaming," the reflection said softly, coming over to place gentle hands on both sides of Ariadne's face, "your entire life so far. It's time you start to awaken to the truth of yourself."
Ariadne did nothing to resist. The hands over her face were warm. In fact, the touch was surprisingly pleasant. She did not want to be free of it. She closed her eyes, suddenly feeling something akin to arousal. If I didn't think I was full of myself before . . . "And what is that?" she asked.
"My dearest Ariadne," the reflection replied in a strangely raspy voice. "You belong to me!"
At first she frowned in confusion, then her eyes flashed open with the shock of recognition of that familiar voice.
She was looking in the grinning face of Calisto.
Erik was still down, balled against the wall and sobbing into his hands, when he heard it. At first he took the hacking sound to be some final rasp of the dead apparition, but then it repeated. And again.
He lowered his hands out of the way of his widening eyes. The corpse was stirring. That hacking sound, an awful lot like a laugh. "What in the name of . . ."
"Nice try, sonny," the corpse grated, raising itself on its remaining elbow. The tattered edge of brain hung half-loose from the cleaved skull.
Erik stared with his mouth open and his heart gripped with bald horror, as the thing's bloodied lips spread to a grin, skin hanging loose on the left side where the face now ended. Unnatural malice twinkled in the remaining eye. The thing coughed a spatter of blood. "I'm afraid it won't be that easy." The voice was clearer than it should have been—insofar as it should have been there at all!—and when the thing spoke, whatever lips were left on the split-off side of his head were moving too.
Erik could do little more than breathe in aghast gasps. He instinctively felt about for his blade, but it was out of reach.
The thing started to chuckle, and somehow the voice seemed to echo in Erik's skull. He clapped hands over his ears.
"You can't defeat me," it said. "What I am, you cannot slay."
He could not get the sound out. Get out of my head!
The creature pulled itself up, casting a gleaming stare of seething hatred and scorn at Erik
With a sudden movement, it then lurched forward.
"What I am," it shrieked, "YOU CANNOT SLAY!"
Runa had no idea how long she had knelt there, her face buried in her hands and bawling. She felt dry, depleted. Like no matter how hard she tried, there was no more cry left in her. She'd had enough—perhaps for a lifetime.
Still, the question plagued her. Why? Why would anyone hurt them. And Faer, he had been only three! How could he have possibly deserved it? How could any of them, for that matter? How could anyone do something like that!
But only the terrible silence around her answered. She felt as though that was as much answer as she was ever going to get. The world of just rewards and punishments she had been taught to believe in was nothing but a lie, at best a benign one people told themselves—just so they could bear to live in this world filled with monsters that could do something like this.
But the truth was, there was no justice. No reward, no punishment. Only what you could reach out and wrench for yourself out of the world.
The sorrow inside Runa was still there, but she at once formed a barrier against it. She clenched her little fists. If it took her her entire life, she would find those who did this! She would find them, and . . . what?
Even as her new-found defense had begun to fade, something else shoved it aside altogether. She raised her head. A clonking sound downstairs. The creak of the front door. Someone had entered the house.
Suddenly naked fear hummed in her ears again and she cast about. She needed to hide.
The closet. From a thing of fright to just a piece of furniture to a potential sanctuary.
Runa clambered up and rushed over to the heavy cupboard, opened the door and dove in the midst of the hanging long jackets within. She closed the door and hunched there, and waited.
At length the sound of careful footfalls came up the stairs. Stopped for a while and then continued towards Runa's murdered family.
Questions raced through her mind. What was this, the killer come to ensure that his victims remained dead? No, that made no sense. If not that, what then? Had someone realized that the Fair-Shields had yet another child and now had come to finish the job?
Trying to calm herself, Runa squeezed her doll Molla tight around her chest and started rocking to and fro. This dislodged Papa's long sailor's coat, which fell on her. As she disentangled herself from it another coat fell down, and the hanger with it, making a small noise which nonetheless sounded massive in the silence.
Runa stayed motionless and listened. Perhaps she hadn't—
Slow steps again, coming closer. Runa tensed her whole body, as if she could will herself to grow so small as to become invisible. Please don't come here, please don't come here.
The steps drew near. Stopping right in front of the wardrobe.
Nothing happened for a while, and so Runa began to hope—
She screamed as the door opened.
Whoever had opened it was suddenly flung back, as though by the sheer force of Runa's cry. For an infinitesimal moment she felt good. She felt like she possessed some power.
But it was just for a moment. The figure, now sitting on the floor, then lit a light and revealed a man in a soldier's uniform. Runa could not make out the face, and in truth she did not want to look. So she focused on the uniform. Imperial. Papa did not like the Empire. Is that why they killed him?
Fear was then swept from her mind. Runa thought about how she'd had to lose everyone she loved in the word simply because of some stupid disagreement over who should get to say how things were done. Even her baby brother who had known nothing of such things! How completely mad the world of adults was. She never wanted to grow to be a part of something so twisted!
Her mind was filled with hatred.
Runa lifted her gaze to see the man. He looked terrified. Yes, he knew. He could see what she saw. He could see her anger. Child though she may have been, she would not be that way forever.
She wanted to kill the man!
Perhaps he really did see it all, by the way he blanched. You will know the name of Runa Fair-Shield!
The man opened his mouth to speak. But Runa did not care about what he was going to say. She dashed out of the closet. To her satisfaction, the man flinched. I'm fast! And one day I will be just as deadly!
But she ran past him and down the stairs. She had no idea of where to go, but she would—
The orphanage was oddly quiet. The other children must have been out, but then why was Runa then inside? Grelod always chased them all out, unless one happened to be exceptionally sick. Runa didn't feel sick.
The main hall was dark, the candles in the chandelier unburning and the hearth nothing but simmering coals. The children's beds lining the room were empty and made. Runa stood at the doorstep and listened. Not a sound. There was always someone around, either Grelod herself or Constance Michel. Now they both seemed to be gone. "Hello," she called to no answer.
And then she noticed the shape at the back. A big lump leaning against the trestle table. Runa swallowed. "Hello?" she called again.
Carefully, she then began to sneak toward the strange shape. She felt a constriction about her chest, but it was not fear, she realized. She wasn't sure what it was.
As she got close, Runa stopped, her mouth falling open. She had to look a few times before she dared to believe it true.
Grelod the Kind slumped against the table, eyes staring vacantly in a frozen expression of shock. The woman never smiled, but now a wide crimson grin had opened across her wiry neck. a stickily red puddle was spreading out under her.
That feeling in Runa's chest, she now belatedly recognized. It had been hope. Now it budded into full-blown joy!
"Grelod," she whispered, "is dead."
Aventus, you did it! Wherever you are, I swear, I will always love you for this! Why was that thought stained withs such a tinge of sorrow?
"It is done."
Runa cried out, starting. In the corner stood a figure she swore had not been there just a second ago. Then again, the figure was so black it might have almost blended into the shadows. Dark robes from head to toes, a strange, red-tinted gleam of eyes from underneath the cowl. Those eerie eyes felt to bore into Runa.
Yet she was not afraid.
"You . . ." Runa swallowed. "You did this?"
Faint rustle of robes as a head slowly nodded.
Runa gaze went from the dead witch back to the figure. "Dark Brotherhood?"
Another nod.
"Thank you," Runa said at length.
The head shook as slowly as it had nodded. "No need." The voice was an odd raspy whisper, hard to pin on either sex.
"I thank you anyway," Runa said. "We all do. She was . . ." Looking for the right word. She knew some bad ones but felt as though none were quite enough.
"I know," the figure whispered.
"Well," Runa said, not knowing where else to take the conversation. "Guess you need to be going." She wasn't sure if she more wished that the shade would indeed vacate the premises or if there wasn't a part of her that would have wanted to know it better. At any rate, she knew she would be getting nothing out of the assassin. The Brotherhood was super clandestine, she knew.
And yet, why show themselves to her at all?
Suddenly, Runa was not so unafraid after all. The fact that the figure still stood there did not help. She swallowed. "You . . . are done here, right?"
"Almost," the figure said, the hiss practically amused.
Then the assassin took a step toward Runa, and she took one back.
"Do not be afraid."
"It's . . . difficult not to," Runa admitted.
The figure advanced no more. "We know," it said.
Runa almost dared not ask. "What do you want from me?"
The shade sort of twitched, and Runa realized it was a grunt of amusement. "To show you."
Runa tried to swallow but her mouth felt parched. "Show me what?" Now her voice was but a whisper.
"What you will be," the figure said. "Your fate."
"My fate?" I don't wanna know.
The figure stepped forth again and this time Runa held her ground. Not out of courage, but because she felt frozen in place.
"Death," the figure hissed, motioning at Grelod's corpse. "Blood."
Runa could only stare. She had to assume the assassin wasn't talking about her death. Her blood. At least she hoped so.
"It is," the shade raised one hand and Runa's gaze fixed on it, "this."
And suddenly Runa was taken away from herself. The orphanage melted away from around her and she found herself floating though time and space, or at least that's how she interpretated it. After a few moments' disorientation the world seemed to take shape again. And now she was seeing a young woman, eyes shining with determination and something like arrogance. It was herself, she knew.
And in a series of flashes she saw that young woman grow as she went through her existence. She saw in these flashes some key moments of her life. She saw excitement. She saw adventure. She also saw some gross things that grown-ups liked to do, which despite their repugnance had started to also fascinate her. In fact, there was quite a bit of that!
But yet more than that, she saw . . .
Death.
And blood.
In a fit of abhorring rage, Ariadne tried to twist free of Calisto, but he was too strong. She clawed at his hands around her face but he only grinned.
"Why do you resist?" Calisto said. "You know I'm right."
"Let," Ariadne dug her nails deep his flesh, felt the skin give way, "go of me!" And tore herself from his grip to fall back and onto her ass.
Calisto tilted his head back and laughed. "Look at you! You're being ridiculous."
Ariadne sat on the ground, breathing out her rage, and glared at him from underneath the hair over her face. She had no words for this new apparition. Surely it was another hallucination. There was just no way—
"You can have it all!" Calisto cried, raising his hands. Blood ran down his wrists from the holes Ariadne had torn on the backs of his hands. "You just have to give yourself away!"
Keep talking, Ariadne thought. The hairs all over her body stood up as magicka congregated within.
"Kneel before me, Ariadne! Become mine! I know you want to!"
Ariadne grinned. I want to see you— She pushed herself off the ground and thrust her hands out, screaming, "DIE!"
Calisto but flicked his wrist and all magicka drained from within her. Even before the spell had been fully formed, it died. Momentum yet carried her forward, her useless hands spreading out as she sought balance.
Calisto caught her in his embrace. "See, I knew you'd see the light!"
Ariadne tried to struggle herself free, but Calisto was so strong. They ended up on the floor with him on top. He pinned her arms to the sides and when he let go they remained there, like glued to the floor. In fact, she realized in horror as she tried to move, her whole body felt stuck as though pulled by a great force from below. She tried to curse him but even her lips refused movement.
"Now," Calisto said, his hands on each side of her head and his face inches from hers, "that I have you attention." In spite of herself—really in spite of herself!—being like this ignited a terrible glow between her legs. And from the way Calisto regarded her, that knowing smirk, it was as if he could see exactly how she felt. "Yes," he said softly. "You can feel it, can't you? The rightness of it." He stroked the side of her face. Such a delicate touch. Damn the man, even the smell of his breath was enticing! "This is how it's supposed to be. For someone as powerful as you, only one even more powerful will do." He gave a laugh. "Rhymes nicely, doesn't it?"
Inside of Ariadne, there seemed to be a minor war raging. Some treacherous part of her wanted to give in to this feeling, this terrible, wonderful helplessness. Why fight it? Calisto was stronger than her, more powerful than her, how many men could claim that? She could never give herself to anyone weaker, she knew that now, so was not the natural conclusion that this man of whom she had been dreaming for years, fantasizing about his touch, was the natural choice?
But that would mean that she had to . . . give herself away.
Which was the thing that terrified her the most in the whole word. She had built her entire persona to protect herself against it. And yet she desired it was well. Absolution, freedom from choice. She could just give in and follow the natural course of things. She could have it both ways. Become weak in Calisto's arms, and yet simultaneously become so powerful. so formidable, in the eyes of everyone else: beautiful and terrifying, worshipped and feared! All it would cost her was her soul. What was I doing with that anyway?
This truth about herself, how gossamer-thin her claim to independence truly was, how close she was to giving in to the temptation, chilled her to the bone. It was not the darkness that terrified her—it was realizing how little there was keeping her in the light.
Calisto's eyes were mere inches from hers. It was as if his gaze had hers ensnared, reading each and every uncomfortable truth about her like an open book. Little by little she felt herself surrender to the beckoning void of those eyes.
"You are surrendering," he said with a smile. "Good girl. Just a little bit more now. Here, this ought to do it." And he moved to kiss her.
For a fraction of a second Ariadne was preparing to welcome the kiss which she'd fantasized about so often. But suddenly the horror of the situation struck her with full force. If she let those lips touch hers, it was over. She would lose.
Then that horror gave rise to a fierce surge of will. If she did give herself to the darkness then the choice was hers and hers alone, not his! She focused all that will, and just a moment before the kiss landed, she was able to free her head enough to turn it to one side. "No!" she managed.
That one word seemed to carry all the meaning in the world—a manifestation of what power she possessed, in truth.
"Aww," cooed Calisto in her ear, giving her a shiver. "Still playing hard to get I see. Well. This is fine too." And he started kissing her neck.
Ariadne closed her eyes. She wanted to—really wanted to!—surrender to the sudden pleasure which then spread out in waves, from her neck to her scalp and down in between her legs. She hadn't realized it before, but she absolutely loved having her neck kissed!
And yet, the intrusion, and this snake's nefarious attempt at breaking her, made the sensation sour. Made her loathe it! But her head was unmoving again, so she could do little but bear it.
I hate you! she thought, seeking for the power of fury imbedded in the words.
Enraged, she forced her eyes open. They focused on something right above her hand. A shard of glass from the broken mirror. If only she could free her arm for just a moment the way she'd freed her head. It might be enough.
She focused everything she had, all that helpless rage roiling about in her. She could feel it, the connection between her mind and whatever kept her immobile. She could break it. Even as she struggled against a whimper from Calisto's tongue snaking about her ear, she saw a forefinger twitch.
Just one . . . more . . . PUSH!
Her hand snatched up the shard. Her arm was free. She was free!
With a scream from the bottom of her being Ariadne struck the pointed corner of the shard in the side of Calisto's face. The man gave a satisfying wet cry and jolted off her.
But she wasn't done. Ariadne pressed after him, pushing him onto his back. Then she was straddling him. "Die!" she screamed, bringing the shard down again and again. She attacked that beautiful face of his, his greatest weapon against her. Intent on destroying it.
Calisto was crying incomprehensible words, or perhaps it was that Ariadne's ears refused to understand. Whatever the case, she drew satisfaction from the terror and agony in his voice. He tried to cover his face with his arms but Ariadne found that she was easily able to swat them aside. Where was this sudden strength coming from? She did not care.
Ariadne cut and cut and cut. Mutilating his features, slicing away his damnable beauty, laying bare the horror that was him. Stabbing at those pretty eyes till only bloody sockets remained. Soon only a mess of gore remained, the man rapidly growing immobile, but she kept sinking the glass into flesh. Driven by rage but also . . . delight. Finally she had her revenge! Finally she was in power! Straddling him like she'd dreamed about straddling him, only this was even better! The delight of destroying him gave her such pleasure! She felt she could almost—
She froze in place, in horror, as the nature of the pleasure her brutality was giving her became apparent. She was appalled. It made her feel filthy! She knew people like this existed, but she'd never dreamt that she would be . . .
She saw her reflection in the blood-stained shard, fevered eyes staring at her from behind a crimson gauze. And she smiled.
No, no she didn't. But the reflection did. "See now?" it said. "Doesn't truth feel wonderful? The strong crushing the weak. The natural law. Feel the rightness! Feel the pleasure of it—all of it!"
With a cry Ariadne threw the shard away, staggering to her feet to get the dead man from between her legs. Her crotch felt uncomfortably damp.
In the discarded shard, her reflection laughed.
"Shut up!" she yelled, with predictable results.
Then started with a shriek as Calisto suddenly spasmed.
Ariadne stared, her eyes wide with horror, as the man's ruined mouth spread into a grin. His teeth, although bloodstained, were still perfect. "See?" the voice from his throat was choked but yet brimmed with mirth. "I told you. We're the same!"
She could not take any more. She aired a guttural scream and started running. Behind her she could hear both the voice of Calisto and herself as they joined in laughter.
"She will be back!" said her own voice.
"It's her destiny!" said Calisto's.
Ariadne covered her ears as she blindly scrambled back into the maze.
Erik screamed, jumping up from the ground and collecting his blade. He rounded on the laughing monstrosity on the floor, started to hack at it with blind rage.
"What I am . . .." the creature croaked.
Erik aimed at its head, intent on smashing that accursed voice into nonexistence.
". . . you . . ." Brain, blood, and fragments of skull scattered all around, and still from somewhere the voice came.
" . . . cannot slay!"
Roaring, Erik kicked at the final remains of the completely shattered head. Something splashed on him, brain or blood, but he was past caring. He swung around and ran for the door. He needed to get out! He needed to get—
And then he was crashing down a path in the middle of a forest. The air was bitter cold, wind biting though the belted tunic he wore. The moons loomed large right above him, rimmed with a red-hued haze. He did not stop to wonder where he was and how he had gotten there. He needed to keep moving!
But he wasn't alone. Figures burst out from the trees around, coming right at him.
The first one he recognized. The very first man he had ever killed, a bandit who'd been part of a gang plaguing his hometown. That diagonal gash on his neck, a lucky hit of a hasty blow, was still bleeding down his front. As he stumbled at Erik, the man grinned with bloodied teeth. "What I am you cannot slay!" he cried.
Erik finished the job with the neck by chopping off his head with a clean blow. Yet, even as he left the corpse behind, he could hear the severed head chant, "What I am you cannot slay!"
The next one stood in the middle of the road. He somehow knew the woman, even though he hadn't actually ever seen her in real life. It was a story told to him as a child, of a woman who had housed orphans, and upon inspection by the Imperial guard, they had found the skeletons of dozens of children in her backyard. She had been hanged shortly after, yet she was still being used to scare children into submission with. Erik had grown up having nightmares about her.
There she stood now, a crazed look on the face from little Erik's nightmares, head lolling strangely at the end of a broken neck. The rope was still around it. Under each arm she had the rotting corpse of a small child. "What I am—" she croaked.
The horrid woman finished the sentence even while the top of her body was falling off from where Erik sliced it in two.
Figures kept coming, chanting those same words. What I am you cannot slay! What I am you cannot slay!
He cut them all down, and even after that they kept chanting. Faces he remembered, and some which he didn't, but suspected to have sprung from the darkness of his past. Those he remembered belonged to people he had killed, at least, that much he knew. To him they represented everything wrong with the world. Killing them, he had reasoned, was doing the world a favor. And yet here they were, even death could not keep them down. Even after all the blood flown, the world remained just the same. No better, no worse. Was that why they all seemed to sneer at him? Repeating that same, hateful phrase, the chorus of his failure.
Suddenly exhausted, Erik found he could run no more. He leaned on his sword, trying to breathe the angry bees out of his lungs. How had he gotten so out of shape? Around him he could see more sinister shapes bleed out from the surrounding trees. Myriad voices spewing abuse behind him.
He spun around and stared aghast. All those he had cut down, for the second time, were still trying to get to him. Crawling, hopping on one leg, each how they could. All chanting. The noise was unbearable.
"What we are you cannot slay! What we are you cannot slay What we are you cannot slay!"
"Quiet!" he screamed to no effect. He raised his blade with unsteady hands, even as he felt crushed by the futility of the act.
He found that he did not even care anymore. They had won. They would always win. What he had done here was utterly meaningless. What he had ever done. Like trying to argue with the tide.
He dropped the blade in front of himself, pummel to the ground. He placed the tip right underneath his sternum.
"What we are—"
"You win!" he screamed. And he pressed himself hard against the blade. The shock of cold pain piercing him through and though. He gurgled in agony, then vomited blood. Slowly he pitched to the side, the chant growing farther away. "You win," he slurred. And the world went away even before he hit the turf.
Runa witnessed in mute horror scene upon scene of violence and death played out in front of her eyes. She could feel childhood, like an old coat of paint, flake off her and fade out. The adult within, despite the playfulness and mischief on the surface, was hardened and cold.
Odd, when you took a life of violence, even one such as hers which had not in truth lasted that long, and stripped it down to those individual moments of killing, how the meaningless brutality of it all was laid bare. The spilled blood, the broken bone, the seared flesh, how it seemed to trivialize all mortal life. Nothing but meat hacking away at other meat so as to keep itself from getting hacked at. Fighting for survival, but to what end? None whatsoever. How the animal brutality seemed to render everything else meaningless.
It was not only enemies, either, that she watched getting cut down, carcass by carcass, but friends as well. People she had forgotten about but whom she'd nonetheless felt some level of affection for when they had still been alive. How had so many slipped from her memory?
"Everyone you love," said a whispered voice in her head—the shadowed assassin. "Will die."
And once it seemed that the reserves of past enemy and friend had been depleted, she watched in dismay as people she still knew, who yet lived and breathed, were struck down. Faces so familiar to her. There was Erik, there was Hroar, there was Ariela, and even Ariadne. Thorgir the Meathead, whom she'd never much liked but now realized did love in some strange way, howled piteously as his prodigious trunk was split open from neck to crotch. His was immediately followed by another death, pointless and brutal, and another.
Runa watched this all, utterly helpless and unable to so much as scream. She was disembodied, reduced to a spectator. And all she ever saw of the killer was the blade that did the killing.
Stop this! she cried inside her head. Stop this! What are you trying to prove!
But no one replied.
At length, after it felt there was scarcely everyone left in the world to murder, the last corpses lay in front of Runa, and then she felt the sense of physicality return to her. She was in her body, an adult again.
And she looked down, in horror, to see the gory sword in her own hand. Dripping the blood of her latest victims. When she looked, she realized who they were. Her family. Papa, Mama, and Faer.
The sword clattered off her hand and onto the familiar floorboards.
Everyone you love . . . will die.
"No," she said feebly, then sank to her knees. "No."
Everyone you love will die!
Finally Runa was able to scream.
Ariela kept thinking she heard screams, but each time she stopped to listen there was nothing. Yet after a few of them, she became certain that she was not only imagining it. A shadow of gloom fell over her. She knew that in some way or another her friends were suffering, out there somewhere, lost in this strange maze of hallways and traps.
She looked up, as if she could somehow address the place. "Why are you doing this? What are you doing to them?" she demanded, feeling a bit like a fool. But at the same time she was plagued by the insistent notion that this place was somehow alive. She couldn't explain it, but neither could she shake the feeling.
Whatever the case, there was no reply.
I'm going about this the wrong way, she decided. Alive though the place may be, it obviously cannot reply to me. Maybe if she tried to adjust her mind to it. She closed her eyes. There was a certain dreamlike feeling to the place, like it wasn't quite real. She could only compare it to the feeling one got when in the presence of illusion magic. The unreality, like the world was not quite what you thought it was, and with enough power it could be bent out of its familiar shape. A really unnerving sensation, and yet Ariela found herself fascinated it. She had always been a vivid dreamer, for better or for worse, and was cautiously optimistic about notions that real knowledge could sometimes come from dreams.
She tried to focus. Tried to feel the place, attune to its vibration. She could sense, if only faintly, a certain aliveness. She sought through it in order to try to connect with her companions. Grimacing with the effort, she could almost sense flickers out there, but she had to strain and even then she really did not even know what it was that she was trying to do. It was like trying to find her way in a strange city. In the dark.
Then she though she hit something. Like the end of a thread that she might just be able to grasp. It was like a sound, though more felt than heard. What was it? It's like . . . a train of thought. The impressions were fleeting, but they were real. Ariela tried her damnedest to make sense of it. She could almost get there. It was right there. If only she were able to . . .
—and who does she think she is, anyway, treating me like that! You want to treat me like a dog, beware, the dog has a bite. Oh, yes a bite the like of which you've never even dreamed! We'll see how you cry, won't we? When the dog becomes the master, yes, that'll be quite something; and I assure you I won't be a lenient master, oh no! That's what they'll all learn, and soon! Ahh, I can already see it in my mind's eye! What joy I shall derive from—
Ariela started as she recoiled from the venom which had filled her mind! Such darkness she had never felt before. She felt tainted by it and had to shake herself to return to herself.
What in the word was that?
She should be careful, she realized. It was foolish to poke your nose into places you could not understand. This place was old, chances were it carried more memories than she could imagine, and those memories were bound to include bad ones. She did not know what manner of misfortune might yet befall her if she tried to mess with these things without knowing what to do.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. She could do nothing for her friends. Best she could hope for was to try to find them, and hope they were safe.