Beastly (22 page)

The Beast bowed his head. Twin tears fell heavily to the floor. When he looked back up, the portraits were still and the great corridor restored to darkness. The only light came crawling from underneath the door, inviting him in. He grasped one of the golden rings... and pushed.

Chapter 24

A second blast of searing energy slammed into Malachai’s pale abdomen. The former Wakeful captain collapsed to his hands and knees, eagerly greeted by the cold floor of the Garrison. His lungs were fiery sacks ready to burst. A river of ice cold terror dripped down his back. He spat up a glob of hot blood as pain’s forgotten sensation was restored. He stared at the clot, wondering how much of his blood the Liche Queen would exact as the price of failure. He shivered; another forgotten feature of humanity creeping back into his body.

Dragon steps thundered in his chest, crushing his black heart. He could not recall the last time he felt the terrible growth spreading within, but its name was plastered vividly in his racing stream of thoughts. 
Terror
.

Tapping his fleeting strength, Malachai shoved himself away from the floor and onto a knee.

Crack
.

A blast struck him squarely in the face, knocking him flat onto his back. Malachai’s vision blurred and doubled. The vaulted dome spanning the Barracks began a slow spin. Pandora paced back and forth. Icy venom bathed each word in fury. “If I wished for you to stand, slave, I would have commanded you so.” 

She nodded and a pair of Wakeful soldiers hauled their former captain upright. He had never before experienced the Liche Queen’s wrath so intimately. Three savage blows were all it had taken to sap his strength. Malachai knew the very minutes of his life were counting down. That blasted pirate had double crossed him, ruined his grand designed. Despite the betrayal, he had successfully delivered the little abomination as commanded. But the Beast of Briarburn had escaped.

And that transgression H
er Majesty would never allow to go unpunished.

Malachai, Captain of the Wakeful, Her Majesty’s Highest Champion, the Black Rider himself was now stripped of title and armor, though his punishment did not end there. At the height of her rage, the Liche Queen had stripped away Malachai’s Wakeful curse, allowing the agonizing futility of mortality to reclaim his body. The crimson flames of his eyes were extinguished, replaced by a rotten bloodshot yellow.

Now, his final punishment loomed. The Wakeful guards hooked Malachai under the arms and dragged him to the dark altar, his toes scraping the floor. Pandora playfully stroked the runic archway spanning the altar. One by one they came to glowing, lava colored life. 
Hungry
.

The guards bowed their heads in unison to their queen and then roughly shoved Malachai back to his knees. He fell into the altar’s stone basin with a grunt.

“Rise, Malachai, and accept your fate.” The Liche Queen grasped the
spiraled hilt of a ceremonial dagger edged with a sliver of obsidian. Pandora dragged the blade across the stone, charging the cruel weapon with the Garrison’s foul tension. The sickly dagger whispered Malachai’s name into the cavernous chamber. Malachai grasped at the altar and pulled himself up. His voice cracked and trembled, gone any sense of bravado. “Your Majesty, please! I have only ever wished to serve you!”

“Turn and face your judgment.”

Malachai pressed his back into the hard stone. His fingers clenched the jeering altar and he counted down his breaths, certain each was his last.

“Highness--”

Malachai’s words were severed by the flash of the slicing blade. He choked down a last gulp of air as the cool edge pressed into his throat’s alabaster lump. He gasped as blood trickled from under the blade. He closed his eyes, content to depart his wretched existence in darkness. An eon later, the dagger’s kiss was severed and Malachai dared to steal a breath. Pandora placed the weapon gently down on the altar and reached overhead to the arbour. A sneer crept over her mouth, curling back her lips, freeing two rows of gleaming porcelain teeth. A menacing silence deafened the Garrison. “Perhaps you can yet be of use to me.”

Pandora touched the highest rune, siphoning out the powerful magic she had inscribed long ago. A surge of florid orange coiled down her cold fingertips like a serpent stalking prey. Drained, the rune went lifeless. Malachai stared long and hard at the magic crawling around the Liche
Queen’s arm. He had no heart left to speak of, but had he, it would have sunk deep into the bedrock. The high-point rune was the thirteenth and final mark carved into the arbour. And Her Majesty’s favorite.

Malachai sank to his knees. Life as he had known it as both man and Wakeful was over. He was to become something more. Something evil and twisted, born of the haunted depths of the Liche Queen’s own hateful dreams.
Something never before seen in the waking world.

Something wicked...

“Resist and you will die,” Pandora cautioned. With no further warning she pressed her glowing palm into Malachai’s pale forehead. The blaze of the rune’s
Wicked curse consumed Malachai like a wild-fire, spreading over his body in seconds. His muscles spasmed, contorting his limbs into a snapping tangle of flesh and bone. He tried to scream but the curse burned away the air from his ruined lungs. 

Pandora’s warning was Malachai’s sole thought as he burned. He
spasmed again, severing the tip of his tongue and grinding teeth into bloody dust. Pungent sulfur mists wafted from Malachai’s writhing body. The Blight worked quickly, efficiently. The death force ate at Malachai’s corpse a layer at a time, rotting away skin and tissue. Soon, all that remained was a pile of trembling bones.

“Arise, my dark champion,” Pandora whispered, “Your Queen has need of you.”

The pile of bones began to shake and then exploded violently into a
tempest of jagged, skeletal debris. Pandora snapped her fingers and the cloud collapsed, interlocking its broken pieces like a child’s puzzle. Malachai’s jaw stretched into an exaggerated equine shape. Two rows of empty eye sockets climbed the muzzle’s surface into its brow line. A mane of greasy black sprouted forth, covering the new face. Deep crimson light flickered in the vacant spaces until their blaze split the Garrison’s gloom. Veins and muscle covered the horrid new skeleton as the spine contorted and stretched. The morphing vertebra creaked like a crypt door as it split into two snapping tails covered in thorn-like barbs.

The creature shook the slate grey fur covering the new born muscles of its rippled chest. It rocked on its haunches and licked the leathery scales of its hind quarters with a forked tongue. Malachai’s new jaws stretched into a yawn, revealing a maw filled with razor sharp teeth. The wicked thing trundled to the Liche Queen, its steps punctuated by clicking talons. Twin tails curled around her leg like a loving pet’s.

Pandora scratched the behemoth under its jaw, when it suddenly reared back and howled, rattling the Garrison, shaking dust and splinters free from the dome. The
cadre of Wakeful drew their blades but was halted by a girlish laugh and the stay of her hand.

The Liche Queen admired her handiwork with an evil grin. “Now that’s more like it.” 

***

The door closed behind him with a satisfying thump. The throne room was exactly as the Beast remembered: regal but never an ivory tower. The familiar sound of trickling water invited him to approach the dais. The fearsome stallions of warm marble maintained their staunch posture, but happily received the overdue visitor.

The Beast humbly trod the maroon stretch of carpet to the throne. The walls of the great chamber were still covered by thousands of tiny white candles. Their flames danced in cool breezes siphoned in by slit-like windows stretching from floor to ceiling. As a child he had felt like the windows were the tallest things in all the land. He regarded them once more as he reached the dais, happy to see they retained their grandeur.

Polaris sat on the simple throne, beaming at the Beast’s timely arrival. He bowed respectfully and then bent to kneel. She gestured for the Beast to stand. “Welcome home, Captain. I’ve never understood the need for such formality.”  

The Beast kept his amber orbs affixed to the floor and shook his head. His knee remained firmly planted on carpet covered stone. “I kneel not of law or tradition.” He approached the throne and embraced the petite figure with the out-stretched arms.

“I kneel of gratitude and love…” the Beast said softly, “Lady Adella.”

Polaris squeezed tighter around the Beast’s broad neck. “You remember,” she whispered.

“I am ashamed to have ever forgotten, my Queen.”

“My son, you forgot nothing. The memory was stolen from you.”

The Beast’s heart warmed. Despite the genuine love of their bond, Polaris had never before used the word ‘son’. As if reading his mind, Polaris tilted his chin up firmly meeting his sheepish gaze. 

“You
are
my son.”

The Beast was grateful beyond measure to finally feel a semblance of belonging in the world. The revelations of the Corridor of Chronicles had restored the pieces of his forgotten memory; Polaris’s motherly love restored his forgotten heart. The Beast cocked his head. “Why did you never tell me?  Surely, you could have confided in me you true name.”

“The
Aether used to walk with mortals with no pretense of disguise. Sadly, mankind has allowed its love for magic to fade and have turned their backs on the Once Ways. Having abandoned our guidance a cloak of anonymity became necessary,” The North Star sighed heavily. “How I wish it were not so.”

The throne room vanished upon Polaris’s last word. The helm of the Reaper’s Song and a stunned Poogs filled itself in around them. A blustering wind tugged at Polaris’s sapphire dress, rippling it like one of the ship’s sails. The Beast moved to shield her; fearful the gusts may sweep her away, leaving him alone once more. The pirate did his best to collect himself. He fidgeted with his cuffs, hiked up his trousers. “You truly keep the highest of company, Beast of Briarburn. The light of the
North Star has watched over my ship on many perilous nights.”  

He pumped an excited fist. “And now that she has joined our noble cause defeat will surely flee at the sight of our approach.”

“As I’ve said, we shall need more than bravado and brute strength. Pandora’s power has grown vast and terrible since I departed this world.” Polaris’s face grew dour. “She has an army of sleepless soldiers, her own dark champion, and a madness that will consume the world should we fail.”

The Beast studied Polaris’s face, finding he did not like the sorrowful mask of her expression. It was beneath her somehow, as though she did not deserve to be troubled so. “I will see to Malachai and his traitorous Queen,” the Beast said growling. He remembered the last time he saw the Liche Queen: the day Lady
Adella’s castle fell by her daughter’s own hand. The Liche Queen had been named Pandora then he remembered, back before the crystal blue of her eyes was claimed by the darkness.

How could she leave? How could she have chosen to abandon her kingdom, her people? The Beast was suddenly aware of Polaris’s presence. Embarrassed, he let the fanged scowl fall from his face. “How do I get inside? How will I know where they are holding my Lia?”

“Leave the first part to me, my friend,” Poogs said. He swept his arms open in a wide arc. “The Reaper’s Song is, of course, at your service.”

Polaris tapped the Beast’s medallion, charging it with a touch of her star-born essence. The firestone began to cast an iridescent shine.

“The medallion is all that remains of many dear friends. Long ago, they sacrificed themselves in a desperate attempt to concentrate their magical essence to battle Ahriman’s conquest. Entire kingdoms of the bravest souls were lost standing in defiance of his tyranny. In the end, the highest court of
Aether sacrificed their soul-shines to banish the brightest magic, ’
Wynisahil’
, from the world before it could be used to destroy all of creation,” Polaris said looking suddenly sullen, “And I was its bearer.”

The Beast pinched the ball of light between his fingers.
That something so small could be so powerful.
He thought immediately of Lia, how she had demonstrated on multiple occasions that very same thing. He inspected the medallion closely, for this, the millionth time. All of the years, all of the countless miles walked in solitude through the cruelest of elements. All of the sleepless, endless nights crushed by the burden of nothingness. If only he could have heard the soft call of the fiery gem’s cradled souls.

“The medallion will be drawn to the aura of other
Aether souls,” Polaris continued, “Pandora’s has long since fallen away to darkness.”

“Leaving only the light of my daughter’s.”

“Precisely,” Polaris replied.

“Pandora...” the Beast started with a sigh, “What cruel trick of Fate could have twisted her heart to such blackness? She is your daughter! She is the mother of my child! Is there nothing left of the Princess I loved?”

“Pandora’s fate was sealed long ago. Even as a child she could be
cruel. You remember, do you not? I had hoped your influence would prove enough to turn her away from the dark, but some paths are chosen by their bearers despite our hopes. Polaris rested a re-assuring palm on his chest. “My grand-daughter will not share in Pandora’s fate.”

Polaris covered her heart with a translucent hand. “Lia’s birth was my last hope for my daughter’s soul. It wasn’t long before I knew the hope had been misplaced. Pandora knew, as I did, that Lia was special, that the essence of star-light, the source of all magic, flowed through her. The baby was a living conduit for all of the magic that would sustain the world for her generation. It was Pandora’s own misguided dabbling in the Blight that attracted Ahriman, ‘The Banished’. It was through his guidance that she learned of the Fountain of Starlight and how it could be used to banish magic from the mortal realm. Shortly after Lia’s birth I shrouded the fountain from detection, hoping to keep it hidden away from prying eyes. If they bring Lia to the fountain...”