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| By Michele aka Ygraul Verdemorte |
Chapter 51. Son of Lyssa |
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he water flowed harshly over his face, each new gush bringing him closer to death. Detached, he watched his body buck and tremble, felt the adrenal rush of fear and the catch of breath as he strained to lift his head and breathe even though the air in the little hole was stale and the gag choked him. He gazed down on his own face as the strain faded from his staring visage. Pendaran watched his hair flow like seaweed in the current, strangely beautiful and desolately sad. The gift of life had been stolen from him for no other reason than cruelty and selfishness. “Do not go, child of light, Bide with me a while. See how your flesh persists, I have come for you.” He saw the woman at last, a shifting coil of light trapped deep in the jade beneath his body. She rose as a column of green luminescence, a spirit creature whose true form was trapped by the Jade Wind. His body thrashed desperately and his eyes rolled back in his head. He thought of Ashekoroth, of the flesh that he had stolen, of the poor slain man who had been dislodged so that the demon could take his form. “No! Leave me!” “I will not claim you, Child of the sky. I will forge you anew, A sword against my foe. “Melandru, my mother, Wisest of the blessed earth. In the twilight of her reign Calls to her champions. “The land lies bleeding, The nameless one rises. O Brave son of Lyssa, Answer her call.” “I will not be a demon’s play thing! You will not use me.” “Pendaran, look at me.” She was forged of water now, delicate and beautiful, her glassy flesh lit from within. Her shimmering serpentine tail curled around his dying body, and where it touched the bonds they fell away in a flash of blazing light. She kissed his brow and staring eyes and as a stream of bubbles burst from his gaping mouth, her lips closed over his. Once more he felt his body around him again, heavy and desperate. But she breathed into him now, light as a spring breeze and sweet as honey. The pain left his heaving chest and he curled into her loving arms as the seawater burned his eyes and stole away his vision of her. She cradled him beneath the waves, preserving him by her grace. “Free me from this prison, my love. I have lain in the stone for decades while Ashekoroth ate away at my power and devoured those whom I protect. Sweet child, you alone of all he has sacrificed here in the darkness, you alone have greeted death as a friend and so remained true and whole. I have waited for such a one as you. I need you.” “What if you are no better than he? Surely he spoke such honeyed words to the man whose body he took away.” “He is a thief. The man whose form he wears was dead the moment Ashekoroth decided to don flesh and feast upon your kind. There was no bargaining, no choice. He is an abomination, he was never meant to take form. You may refuse me, Pendaran. I will honor your wish and I will let you die.” “You will fight him through me?” “Yes for the flesh that was once mine is trapped until I can destroy him utterly. He holds a piece of me and uses it to anchor him to this plane.” Pendaran lay back in her arms now, soothed by her beauty and the sweet warmth of her breath. She was beguiling and precious, a being of unimaginable depth and age. He could become lost in her. “That is why I chose you,” she said, “You will never forget who you are and thus I will not consume you. I am of water and it is my nature to erode and dilute all that comes before me. Your corpse is of no use to me. I need a living, breathing human to bear me against my foe. I need your will, freely given.” “Then I yield to you and we will find this missing piece.” “Alas, no. Ashekoroth must not know that I am free. We will hide from him in the depths for he will assume that I have known the pain of your torment and cast your lifeless body to the children of the sea. And when I refuse to speak to him, he will sense only the emptiness of my rage and know it not for my freedom.” “But how? If I am not searching for it, who else will.” “Ashekoroth has merged with all that he has possessed and slain. He learned from me that it is better to ride a living host than constantly restore a decaying corpse. For decades he has labored to perfect a perversion of my gifts. So many have died to give him form, but with each new victim, he advanced a little more until he found Armand. “He will not kill Armand, but he will eventually bind him so completely that Ashekoroth will claim his living flesh while still wielding the powers of a mighty demon. That is his desire. Once so clothed, he will rise to power and rule over humanity like a terrible god. Already he has stolen a piece of the man’s soul and hidden it away. But as you well know, such bonds work both ways. Ashekoroth is also attached to Armand. “Once he has accomplished his goal, he will bind me in the flesh of a queenly woman and make me serve at his side. His perversion sickens me, but I have resisted him in all things. Though we are bound through what he has stolen, I have used his bond to seek those he has touched and help them walk free. While his head is turned, I sing to them in their dreams. But the human mind is foreign to me and often I am misunderstood. Now you and I are one. You can speak for me. “I summon Armand now. Tell him to seek the true face of Ashekoroth and destroy it. He alone has the greatest chance of succeeding where we will surely fail.” “Very well.”
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