It was far too cold and late to linger in such a bad part of town. Distant thunder rumbled in the sky and the shadows seemed to seep from the alleys like ink. Elijah hated being out after dark in Knife's Edge on the best of nights, and this night was one of the worst; the air hung thick with desperate misery. Yet, he was waiting for someone and she was, of course, late.
He paced the dirty street in front of an old Sway church, the only structure in sight not run-down and infested with vagrants. Frigid rain stung his face. Covered carriages occasionally passed by; the city nobility rushed home to their warm, rich manors without noticing how bad things had gotten over the years that they spent hosting fancy parties. Not that Eli couldn't enjoy a nice party.
“Why am I even here?” he muttered as a distant clock tower struck eleven. “This is insane.” He had an early, busy day the next morning -- even an outlaw sorcerer never lacked work in Knife’s Edge -- and there he stood, wasting away the night waiting for an old flame.
“Eli, I need your help. Outside the Ethereal Sway church in West Quarter.” He had stared unblinking at Sarah's message until his eyes went dry. ‘I need your help.’ Such a statement, so powerful in its simple sincerity.
‘Eli, I need your help.’ After two years without even a hello. ‘Please.’ So what else could he do but drop everything and head across the city?
The two of them had been very close, but their relationship went to hell soon after the city did. She had vanished from his world, until now. Though tempted to ignore her plea, part of him wanted to know why. Why me? And why now, after all this time? Why in front of a church? Perhaps he just wanted to see her face again.
So there he stood, waiting at the old stone church, feeling exposed and wondering, was it worth getting soaked and maybe mugged for a face he hadn’t seen in three years? He went inside.
The warm glow of flickering candelabras washed over him as he entered the church's empty sanctuary, spawning dancing shadows on the far walls. Silence enveloped him as he left a trail of wet footprints between the pews, but he could almost hear the haunting echoes of pipe organs and chanting choirs.
Holy symbols and paintings of famous saints covered the walls, their stern visages aglow beneath swaying chandeliers. Elijah wondered how the same gods could inspire such beauty and atrocity in equal measure.
At the sound of limping footsteps, he turned to find an elderly man in black and gold vestments. Silver hair circled his scalp like a crescent moon and a wrinkled face showed his years almost as much as his wise grey eyes. He had the look of an old warrior, a formerly formidable man fallen victim to age. He smiled warmly and hobbled forward.
“Have you come for a late confession, my son?” ‘My son’ bemused the sorcerer, as he could have easily been the priest’s grandson.
“Oh, no.” He smiled awkwardly, sinking wearily into the front pew. “I’m waiting for someone. I just needed a quiet place out of the rain to… to collect my thoughts for a while.”
“Ah, yes,” said the priest with a knowing nod. “This is a good place to calm a troubled mind. I am Nicholai Timko.”
“Eli.” He did not meet the old man’s eyes, but felt their scrutiny. He tucked his hands beneath the folds of his cloak, lest the holy man see the web of burn scars -- a clear mark of outlawed sorcery.
“Well, you may stay as long as you like. If you need anything, or if you change your mind about that confession, you can find me.”
“Yes, thank you.” He sighed as Timko walked away. Despite the priest's welcoming reception, he felt ill at ease. Had the old man known of Eli’s nature, their conversation would have been much different. He’d survived enough witch hunts in his life, and had lost enough friends and family because of them; he had no interest in fleeing Salvar again with a mob of torch-wielding fanatics at his back. Thus, though he maintained a subtle presence in the Salvar Underground, making a good living as a ‘private contractor’, he kept his secret. Who could he trust?
Eli had hoped to trust Sarah. She had always been the spear through his cynicism and fear, always forgiving and understanding. He knew she would never condemn him. What she did was worse: she asked him to give up magic. She pleaded with him to cease his studies, begged him to leave his sorcery behind, to go away with her to a town on the frontier roads and open a tavern like they had always talked about as children. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t do it. He refused to let go of magic, and as a result let go of the women he loved.
Why would Sarah want to meet at a church? What trouble was she in? Did it matter? It meant he would see her again. Still, he had never been the type to get handed a nice surprise without fate simultaneously kicking him in the ass. He just had to wait for the other karmic shoe to drop.
As if on cue, the main doors slowly creaked open. He spun around and his heart jumped into his throat. A dark, slender form stood rigid just outside the doorway. Eli recognized that curly red hair and freckled face in an instant.
“Sarah?” He went to her. “I was starting to wonder.” He opened the door wider, but she didn't move. She merely stared inside with wide, blank eyes, looking haggard and pale like she hadn't rested in days. “Let's get you inside out of the rain.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and gently tugged her inside. Whimpering, she stepped over the threshold, and suddenly her face twisted with rage. Horrific spasms wracked her body. She clawed at her own arms and a raw growl escaped her throat, and finally she collapsed to the floor.
“Father Timko!” Eli knelt beside her. She sniffed the air twice and growled again, still twitching and convulsing, as though something hideous crawled beneath her skin, trying to get out. “Sarah, what's wrong?” He spoke softly, struggling to steady his voice. Whatever afflicted her, it disturbed him on levels he did not understand. “Look at me.”
Her face and entire body abruptly fell limp. Eli turned her head toward him, but almost reflexively retracted his hand; her face was insanely hot, beyond feverish. She rambled incoherently and began standing up again.
“No, no. Don't stand. We’ll get help.” He reached down to prevent her from rising. Without warning, she lunged up with stunning speed and struck him across the jaw. His head snapped back from the shocking force. He staggered, vision spinning.
Sarah howled hideously, like a thousand screams. Eli recoiled, but she sprang forward, grabbed him by his coat, and hurled him across the sanctuary like a child’s toy. He crashed painfully into a row of pews. She loped toward him on all fours, hissing and snarling like a rabid animal. She lashed at him, raking fingernails across his face. He cried out. Blood streamed down his cheek. She lifted him by the throat and threw him again, this time sending him sprawling into the altar, knocking saintly busts from their pedestals. Marble shattered upon the granite floor.
He struggled to his feet, vision spinning. His entire body throbbed. Sarah lurched forward, eyes burning murderously, bloody fingers rigid like claws. She crouched and tensed like a predator. Eli cursed and back into the altar.
“By the power of the holy Sway, I bind you, servant of the Aybss!” Father Timko’s voice rang out as the aging priest hobbled from the far side of the room, brandishing the Silver Spear and Scale, the symbol of the church. No longer soft and warm, his words cut though the sanctuary on a razor’s edge. They possessed an unexplainable force, a certain unexplainable something, something beyond the unwavering conviction pouring from the old man. Sarah stopped sharp. “By their Ethereal might, I cast you out. The wrath of the gods has come upon you. I rebuke you from this world!”
“Put your trinkets away, holy man,” she growled in that same hideous chorus of voices, glaring at the priest with smoldering hate. Her malice seemed to boil through the air and press against Elijah’s skull. The priest stood firm, chanting louder. Sarah faltered. Her body stiffened and contorted, spine twisting and limbs bending at obscene angles. A raspy howl bled from her throat, grating like barbs between Elijah’s ears, as though it clawed at his soul.
Then she fell silent, standing rigid and immobile. Inky black ichor trickled from her eyes. An oppressive thickness enveloped the chamber. The candles dimmed and the shadows darkened, deepened. Whispers echoed insidiously from every corner.
Like abyssal wombs, the pooling shadows birthed twisted, blackened forms. Silently, they slide across the floors, smashing aside pews and statuary. The priest cried out a prayer, but the creatures halted for only and instant. They swarmed upon them from all sides.
Elijah threw off his cloak, revealing the scars that covered his arms like webs. He spoke words, old words from an age built of magic. He traced intricate sigils into the air, bending the threads of reality to his will. The countless candles flared up, their flames streaming upward. They merged into a single blazing inferno at the domed ceiling, swirling like the eye of a storm.
With a single sweeping motion, he completed his spell. The fire swept down, roiling across the sanctuary in a thousand embers. The shadowy spawn screeched, burned and driven back. The smell of rotting, burning flesh stung his nostrils. The sanctuary flared with blinding light, and then all went black, save for the faint glow of Elijah’s scars; his eyes burned balefully against the smoky darkness.
He whispered a single word, reigniting every candle in a tide of light. The illumination revealed the sanctuary in shambles. Singed tapestries hung from the wall, and most every pew had been reduced to smoldering ruin. Only Elijah, Sarah, and -- though not by design -- the priest remained unharmed. Lines of smoke rose from the sorcerer’s scars, and Sarah had fallen limb to the floor. He cursed and ran to her.
“Blasphemer!” cried the priest, advancing on Elijah on his wobbly legs, brandishing his holy trinkets. “Demon!”
“Now of all times, you should know what true demons are, you old fool.” The sorcerer shot the old man a fiery glare and knelt beside Sarah. Unconscious, she looked peaceful and beautiful; she looked like the woman he remembered. What had happened? How long had she been like this? Was this why she had sought him out? He gently touched her cheek. So many questions needed answering.
“Stay away from her!” Father Timko's stern and unyielding voice fell on deaf ears. Eli went to pick her up off the floor when her eyes shot open, bloodshot and wild. She grabbed him by the neck with both hands, fingernails sinking into flesh. He struggled against her, but even his formidable strength paled compared to her unnatural might. She pulled him closer in a twisted mockery of a lover’s embrace. Their eyes met, hers seeming to absorb him completely.
Elijah ceased to struggle. An unseen force pulled at his mind, drawing him ever downward. The material world faded. He felt himself sinking. Something else lurked within Sarah, something sinister that sought to drag him in with it. And, he decided with grim determination, he would find his answers by letting it.
When their minds touched, it was the spiritual equivalent of reaching a bloody hand into a piranha-infested lake. He felt the briefest glimmer of something familiar. Then, whips of barbed blackness lashed out at his mind. He cried out in pain. Yet, instead of pulling away, he dove deeper into the darkness that loomed ahead like a great menacing void. He knew she was in there; he had felt it.
As he dove deeper into this vast sea of psychic thorns, a pulsing glow took shape: dark red, malignant, and throbbing like a tumor. A deep laugh oozed from the red like a stream of bile. Unlike some, he knew a demon when he saw one.
The burning presence howled with sick amusement and opened up like a great, fiery maw. Tendrils of blood, blackness, and flame poured from the formless apparition, ensnaring his ethereal form. He struggled in vain against the terrible malevolent being. It spoke blasphemous liturgies in a language he didn’t understand, yet he somehow knew beyond all doubt that it would consume his mind and soul. There was no escape.
“I command you, unclean spirit…” Fragments of the priest’s voice echoed through the all-devouring abyss like the ringing of a distant belfry. I could only make out part of what he said. “…servant of evil, by the…our Ethereal might…of the Gods…reveal to me your name!”
A bestial growl rumbled from the demon like a subterranean volcano. It snarled a response to Timko’s voice, yet what Elijah heard was no normal name, but rather the sound of burning fat fused with tearing metal beneath tormented wails. It echoed from all sides in a hideous cacophony.
The father’s prayers faltered for a moment, but quickly returned with renewed strength, resonating and drowning out the foul utterances of the demon. Its sinister presence recoiled. “I command you, depart from this child of Salvar!” Lances of light pierced the darkness and the demon roiled and twisted angrily. Its grip weakened, and the disembodied sorcerer broke away, swimming desperately toward the light.
And then he heard her voice. “Eli, help me!” He turned back to see Sarah trapped within the demon’s burning mass, her ethereal form ragged, battered, and shackled with fiery chains. She reached out weakly, sobbing in terror and hopelessness. She would never survive the priest’s banishment; the demon would devour her before being cast out, and she was too tired to fight it.
His purpose became clear. Whatever power Timko wielded against this creature, whether really from the gods or something else, it would not be enough to save Sarah. Elijah would have to.
“I’m coming!” He dove back into the storm that rapidly consumed her mindscape. Light and darkness swirled around in a fierce psychic tempest as priest and demon did battle with shouted rites and roaring blasphemies. Searing winds and fiery brimstone buffeted him and jagged daggers of lightning slashed phantom wounds into an immaterial sky. Through it all, Eli charged forward like a meteor, bringing the full power of his will to bear, hand stretching for her.
The shapeless demon lashed out with its many tendrils, ensnaring him and cutting gashes in his psychic form. Eli thrashed, clawed, and even bit his way through before finally grasping Sarah’s hand. Beams of light continued blasting through the churning black. The demon screeched and wailed like a tormented soul and latched on even tighter to the two ex-lovers, determined to bring them with it.
He grabbed Sarah by the waist and rocketed away from the infernal monster’s grasp with all his psychic might. He broke free and surged toward the light with Sarah held securely in his arms. The demon snarled and cursed, but he didn’t look back. The threshold of light was within reach!
In its death throes, the formless abomination lashed out one last time. Dozens of tendrils latched onto Eli’s legs and torso in the demon’s last malicious effort to pull him into its soul-devouring maw. He screamed, squirmed, and struggled, but its grip only grew stronger. Vile laugher bubbled up like swamp gas from its pulsing red mass.
With grim determination, he hurled Sarah into the light, out of the demon’s reach. She vanished, no doubt fleeing to hide her consciousness in some safe corner of her mind. That left Elijah, caught in the clutches of an evil entity born from madness.
“I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every infernal power, and all your fell companions!” The priest’s voice grew stronger and stronger, but the demon’s grip refused to relent. The ensnared sorcerer fought for the edge of the void, thrashing in vain as he sank toward the dying demon’s foul maw.
In a feat of that desperate imagination that comes only at the brink of oblivion, he grabbed at the light, imagining it to be an actual solid substance, and broke off a shard of pure white. Knowing better than to ponder the absurdity, he slashed downward with the glowing shard, hacking through the demon’s tendrils in a single slice. With a final push, he dove into the enveloping brightness.
He escaped her mind with a pained cry, his body flying backwards from an invisible force. His head throbbed with excruciating pain, and his mouth tasted sulfur, blood, and rot. He struggled to his feet. Father Timko knelt over Sarah’s unconscious form, muttering prayers over her. He looked almost as bad as Elijah felt.
“For what it’s worth,” Eli muttered, shuffling up behind the priest, “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
The priest did not look at him. “I know who you are.”
“What?”
“Only one man in Salvar could do what I’ve witnessed this night, Elijah Belov.” The name came out as a throaty whisper. Timko finally met the sorcerer’s gaze. “And I know that if you wanted to kill me now, I would have no power to stop you.”
“I am taking the woman with me and leaving,” he replied simply. There was no question in his words, as though he merely stated that the skies of Salvar were gray and its winters cold.
“Yes. That is for the best.” The old man stood slowly, and backed away from Sarah, leaving plenty of distance between himself and the sorcerer.
“Thank you.” Eli gently picked her up and started for the door. “But know that should you seek me out, or lead others to me through your words or actions, I will return and burn your cathedral to the ground. No stone will remain un-shattered, no relic undefiled. I will snuff the remains of your life out like a low-burning candle.” It sounded harsh, but Eli could ill afford anything less. He left without another word.
* * * * *
Elijah felt ready to collapse with exhaustion when he finally arrived home. He set Sarah down on his old sofa -- she had always loved the ratty thing even though she’d thought it ugly -- and cleaned and bandaged himself up as well as he could. Citizens of Knife’s Edge were used to seeing injured people. He returned, setting some water on the table by Sarah. She seemed in better shape than he was, save for some mild burns. He knelt beside her and brushed some red curls out of her face.
She stirred. “Eli?” Her voice was weak and strained.
“Shh…” His hand found hers. “You’re safe.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice shaking, almost a sob. A tear rolled down her face. “I shouldn’t have tried making you become something you weren’t. I should have stood by you from the beginning, instead of waiting until I needed you.”
“It’s all right,” he softly replied, gently stroking her cheek. “I’m sorry for choosing my magic over you.” He would always forgive her, because she would let him forgive himself. She was the spear through his cynicism. “Now sleep.” With those words he wove the gentlest spell he knew, as soft as a spring breeze and as tender as a broken heart. “Sleep.” She closed her eyes and he gently kissed her. “I never stopped loving you.”
Like the walking dead, he shuffled into his room and fell into bed, utterly exhausted. Yet, sleep evaded him. The events of that night fell upon him all at once, plaguing his thoughts. Only then did he truly realize how close he had come to literal oblivion. He had survived, as had Sarah, and he was no stranger to terror and traumatic dreams.
Yet, something was wrong. He could feel it scratching at the back of his head.
He recalled the terrible name the demon had given. More horrific noise than a real name, it was clearly not meant to be spoken aloud, and indeed no human mouth could truly pronounce it. He conjured it in his mind, the hideous sounds of searing fat, ripping metal, and tortured wailing all churned together in a cauldron of sin and anguish, and wondered what it meant.
The scratching in his head intensified and something stirred in the corners of his mind, like a hot mass of needle-covered maggots, writhing and growing. Spreading. A voice bubbled in his skull like boiling pitch. “You called?”
Submit Thread for Judgment
